I...am a geek. In the classic sense of the word though. Growing up, I loved sci-fi... I played Dungeons & Dragons the old fashioned way....by using my imagination. I actually wore a pocket protector for a short period of time. I finally stopped when I could no longer take the beatings I got routinely after school. I used to be the really annoying smart kid who never seemed to need to study to make good grades. Some of my classmates and teachers alike, viewed me with equal disdain. I stress the phrase "used to be". Girls and music brought that to a screeching halt however, much to my mother's dismay.
The geek in me has been reliving the glory days by watching old Star Trek shows again. I have several seasons of the original and TNG on DVD. I have mentioned that I'm a geek right? I digress...
I've begun to notice a very odd thing however by watching those shows again. I have a fairly explosive theory to posit. Well, explosive to other geeks like me. It is my hypothesis that the ship and crew from the original series are much tougher and more "sea-worthy" than the ship and crew of Next Generation. Beyond the obvious styles of Captaincy of Kirk and Picard, the ship from TNG is really a piece of junk. The crew comes off every now and then as latte' sipping yuppies trying desperately to keep their flying tub aloft.
I know how that would ripple through the geek universe if it were widely known. I can faintly hear the snapping of pencils and the whir of computers sparking to life. Chaos would reign supreme if that little theory made it to wider view. It would be anarchy I tell you.
Let me state part of my case and let the reader decide.
New ship: Every time they got near an asteroid field, the sensors stopped working. Who made the damn sensors? Nextel?
Old Ship: Scotty could make that thing go to warp just by tapping on a display panel. "Just jiggle the handle Captain."
New ship: Every time they went near anything with the word "anomaly" in the name, the engines would crap out. Poor Geordi got worked to death.
Old ship: Kirk once did a "fly-by" with the ship, bringing it into Earth's atmosphere. Like it was a Camaro on hot blacktop.
New ship: Data, an android who wants to experience emotion. What's next...skin creme and a manicure?
Old ship: Mr. Spock, half-human, half-Vulcan who wants to be devoid of emotion. Easier to blast the bad guy that way.
New ship: Picard was an experienced, effective diplomat. He could talk his way through any door.
Old ship: Kirk knew where the photon torpedo button was and used it often. He never even noticed the door.
New ship: Picard has destroyed three different ships thus far. I have to question the wisdom of Starfleet that they would continue to let this man fly the "flagship" of the Federation. He treated the Enterprise like a drunken teenager treats his dad's BMW.
Old ship: That ship flew until it was invaded by Klingons. Kirk even stole the ship once to go pick Spock up for an interstellar kegger. Gutsy move dude!
New ship: One female member of the crew regularly showed cleavage ...Counsellor Troi. The ship was always blowing a phase inducer or some such critical component.
Old ship: EVERY female member of the crew showed cleavage. The fact that the old ship performed as well as she did with all that eye-candy around, is a testament to how sturdy she was.
New ship: Typical dialog..."We need to realign the coil emissions to match the new frequency of the rammistat core Captain, or we're all going to die." What the hell does that even MEAN?
Old ship: Typical dialog..."He's dead, Jim" I know EXACTLY what that means.
New ship: Picard was once captured by the Cardassians and tortured mercilessly while suspended from some terrible device. Oh, he was naked too. He also got "violated" by the Borg and assimilated.
Old ship: Kirk got stuck inside a planet and still managed to find his way out. He didn't take crap from anybody. He was once forced to make out with Uhura. Terrible punishment that must have been. Where do you sign up for torture like that?
Of course...these opinions are my own. I love both shows but I seem to have finally found my preference. I may start in on watching all the movies in order as well. Just to complete my little journey of self-discovery. I have them all by the way...I seem to recall mentioning that I am a .....geek.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Scapegoat
We’ve all heard it said before at one time or another, “this or that is the new something”. Like, “Pink is the new black” or “60 is the new 40”. You know what I’m saying. Heck, you’ve probably even said it yourself. It’s a simple way of transposing one idea or standard with another to create a new one with a slight twist. I’m going to create one now to suit my own personal style. “47 is the new 18”. I figure this should absolve me of acting like a grownup too often while leaving me free to listen to Lynard Skynard at ear splitting volumes whilst I drive around town.
It’s been said countless times and sometimes the comparisons are agreeable but too often, they just seem silly. Pink is not the new black no matter how you look at it. Would men react so positively to a “little pink dress”? Probably not. Can you imagine police cars being called “pink and whites”? I certainly can’t and it’s ridiculous to think anyone else would find it reasonable. Although I suspect it would probably go over quite well somewhere in California.
As a way to provide perspective to this piece let me state clearly that I watch, read and listen to a lot of news. I gobble up as much as I can partly to be well informed and partly due to my fascination with all things “homo sapiens“. People are the most interesting yet puzzling creatures on the planet and I never tire of learning about them. The world truly is a wondrous place because humans are in it. They never cease to amaze me for their great leaps of intelligence, their unyielding commitment to each other and sadly, the depravity they are able to sink to. That depravity is what grounds me and reminds me all too often that we are, after all, just another species of animal. Capable of choosing our own path, in most cases, and also capable of such destructive evil on both a personal and a global level.
The old maxim used to be “Sex sells.” but over the years it seems that it’s been changed to “Death sells.” The one defining characteristic of being human seems to be our never ending ability to visit horror on our fellow humans. Great leaders throughout history have risen to power riding a tide of human suffering and bathed in blood. Ghengis Khan, Torquemada, Mao, Guevara, Stalin and of course, everyone’s favorite demon in human form - Adolph Hitler.
I hold Hitler to be far worse than almost any other purveyor of human suffering in that he convinced his fellow countrymen, or at least most of them, that an entire religion was the single source for all his country’s, and the world’s, ills. The startling reality was that he did this in modern times when news outlets and cameras were readily available to document his atrocities. The mere word “jewish” became synonymous with suffering even to a people who had known thousands of years of it. Even in recent times, Jews are mocked openly, denigrated by millions of people across the globe and treated as less than human by the vast majority of Muslims. Once again, they are held up as everything that is wrong with the world today.
It’s at this point you’re probably wondering why I broke into a lesson on history that you already knew. I’m going to draw a comparison that some of you might cringe at and still others will decry as paranoia and utter stupidity but I’m going to make it anyway.
“Conservative is the new Jewish.”
There. Let that sink in for a moment. Do you feel that vein in your temple beginning to throb? I’ll bet you’re already thinking of the counter argument but let me state categorically that I in no way intend to downplay the suffering or the brutality visited upon the Jewish people nor do I seek to infer that being conservative means they round you up and send you to the gas chamber. Not yet anyway.
I suppose I could say just as easily;
“Conservative is the new AIDS” or
“Conservative is the new ‘negro’”
“Conservative is the new whatever we don’t like and want to get rid of these days.”
It’s dirty word these days no matter how you say it. Not to those practitioners of conservatism like myself but to practically all the media and the rest of the country we are held up as all that is wrong with the modern life. Our individuals and groups are thought of as stupid, dangerous and less than human. We are openly mocked night after night on radio, TV and movies. Our male leaders are called stupid and our female leaders are held up as objects to be sexually denigrated by respectable journalists, celebrities and leaders in government.
“If we could only shut them up, we’d all be better off.”
Or as Dan Savage, liberal radio host and outspoken gay activist said recently, “I wish they were all f*cking dead.” He also said on Bill Maher’s HBO show, Real Time, that he wanted to have violent “hate sex” with Conservative presidential hopeful, Rick Santorum. And not a single peep from the arbiters of tolerance on the left.
We are cast as a plague on humanity. Not only is it perfectly acceptable to say horrible things about us, it is encouraged by no less than the President Of The United States. According to him, we are “bitterly clinging to our guns and religion” and we are cast as “the enemy” to be punished. He openly mocks and seeks to isolate the only news network where conservatives can go to hear their viewpoints expressed as something other than fantasy and hysteria.
It’s trendy and chic to hate conservatives in the swankier restaurants in New York City. It’s a sign of higher intelligence to think we are just a bunch of gun-toting crazies who want to kill everyone who doesn’t look like us. It’s true enlightenment to be tolerant of every kind of societal depravity known to man but not to conservative opinion. Tolerance these days has come to mean being tolerant to those who hate conservatives.
Imagine for a moment that Rush Limbaugh had wished every Liberal dead. Or that he fantasized about violent hate sex with Nancy Pelosi, scary as that might sound. Rush takes enormous heat by saying things that are one-one thousandth as harsh and Dan Savage gets a free pass because he said it about a conservative. That’s ok. Bill Maher can call Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman “milfs” because he said it about conservatives so it’s ok. Olbermann, Schultz and Matthews can call us “tea baggers” as frequently as possible because it’s only being said about conservatives. It’s ok. Obama can call us “the enemy” and get away with it because he’s talking about conservatives. It’s ok.
At what point does shutting us up become ok? When does it become ok to shut down our media sources and deny us free speech? Are we almost to the point when it’s ok to make us wear something that identifies us as conservative? Like a big red “C” sewn into our clothing maybe?
Atrocity starts with a whisper but always ends with a scream. It starts with one group finally deciding they’ve had enough of some other group. It starts with something simple that’s done for the good of a nation but ends with people being rounded up.
Go now and read some of Goebel’s or Gehring’s speeches and substitute the word “jewish” with the word “conservative” and tell me how you feel afterwards.
It’s been said countless times and sometimes the comparisons are agreeable but too often, they just seem silly. Pink is not the new black no matter how you look at it. Would men react so positively to a “little pink dress”? Probably not. Can you imagine police cars being called “pink and whites”? I certainly can’t and it’s ridiculous to think anyone else would find it reasonable. Although I suspect it would probably go over quite well somewhere in California.
As a way to provide perspective to this piece let me state clearly that I watch, read and listen to a lot of news. I gobble up as much as I can partly to be well informed and partly due to my fascination with all things “homo sapiens“. People are the most interesting yet puzzling creatures on the planet and I never tire of learning about them. The world truly is a wondrous place because humans are in it. They never cease to amaze me for their great leaps of intelligence, their unyielding commitment to each other and sadly, the depravity they are able to sink to. That depravity is what grounds me and reminds me all too often that we are, after all, just another species of animal. Capable of choosing our own path, in most cases, and also capable of such destructive evil on both a personal and a global level.
The old maxim used to be “Sex sells.” but over the years it seems that it’s been changed to “Death sells.” The one defining characteristic of being human seems to be our never ending ability to visit horror on our fellow humans. Great leaders throughout history have risen to power riding a tide of human suffering and bathed in blood. Ghengis Khan, Torquemada, Mao, Guevara, Stalin and of course, everyone’s favorite demon in human form - Adolph Hitler.
I hold Hitler to be far worse than almost any other purveyor of human suffering in that he convinced his fellow countrymen, or at least most of them, that an entire religion was the single source for all his country’s, and the world’s, ills. The startling reality was that he did this in modern times when news outlets and cameras were readily available to document his atrocities. The mere word “jewish” became synonymous with suffering even to a people who had known thousands of years of it. Even in recent times, Jews are mocked openly, denigrated by millions of people across the globe and treated as less than human by the vast majority of Muslims. Once again, they are held up as everything that is wrong with the world today.
It’s at this point you’re probably wondering why I broke into a lesson on history that you already knew. I’m going to draw a comparison that some of you might cringe at and still others will decry as paranoia and utter stupidity but I’m going to make it anyway.
“Conservative is the new Jewish.”
There. Let that sink in for a moment. Do you feel that vein in your temple beginning to throb? I’ll bet you’re already thinking of the counter argument but let me state categorically that I in no way intend to downplay the suffering or the brutality visited upon the Jewish people nor do I seek to infer that being conservative means they round you up and send you to the gas chamber. Not yet anyway.
I suppose I could say just as easily;
“Conservative is the new AIDS” or
“Conservative is the new ‘negro’”
“Conservative is the new whatever we don’t like and want to get rid of these days.”
It’s dirty word these days no matter how you say it. Not to those practitioners of conservatism like myself but to practically all the media and the rest of the country we are held up as all that is wrong with the modern life. Our individuals and groups are thought of as stupid, dangerous and less than human. We are openly mocked night after night on radio, TV and movies. Our male leaders are called stupid and our female leaders are held up as objects to be sexually denigrated by respectable journalists, celebrities and leaders in government.
“If we could only shut them up, we’d all be better off.”
Or as Dan Savage, liberal radio host and outspoken gay activist said recently, “I wish they were all f*cking dead.” He also said on Bill Maher’s HBO show, Real Time, that he wanted to have violent “hate sex” with Conservative presidential hopeful, Rick Santorum. And not a single peep from the arbiters of tolerance on the left.
We are cast as a plague on humanity. Not only is it perfectly acceptable to say horrible things about us, it is encouraged by no less than the President Of The United States. According to him, we are “bitterly clinging to our guns and religion” and we are cast as “the enemy” to be punished. He openly mocks and seeks to isolate the only news network where conservatives can go to hear their viewpoints expressed as something other than fantasy and hysteria.
It’s trendy and chic to hate conservatives in the swankier restaurants in New York City. It’s a sign of higher intelligence to think we are just a bunch of gun-toting crazies who want to kill everyone who doesn’t look like us. It’s true enlightenment to be tolerant of every kind of societal depravity known to man but not to conservative opinion. Tolerance these days has come to mean being tolerant to those who hate conservatives.
Imagine for a moment that Rush Limbaugh had wished every Liberal dead. Or that he fantasized about violent hate sex with Nancy Pelosi, scary as that might sound. Rush takes enormous heat by saying things that are one-one thousandth as harsh and Dan Savage gets a free pass because he said it about a conservative. That’s ok. Bill Maher can call Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman “milfs” because he said it about conservatives so it’s ok. Olbermann, Schultz and Matthews can call us “tea baggers” as frequently as possible because it’s only being said about conservatives. It’s ok. Obama can call us “the enemy” and get away with it because he’s talking about conservatives. It’s ok.
At what point does shutting us up become ok? When does it become ok to shut down our media sources and deny us free speech? Are we almost to the point when it’s ok to make us wear something that identifies us as conservative? Like a big red “C” sewn into our clothing maybe?
Atrocity starts with a whisper but always ends with a scream. It starts with one group finally deciding they’ve had enough of some other group. It starts with something simple that’s done for the good of a nation but ends with people being rounded up.
Go now and read some of Goebel’s or Gehring’s speeches and substitute the word “jewish” with the word “conservative” and tell me how you feel afterwards.
The Politics Of Fear
“I cannot guarantee that those checks go out…if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be money in the coffers to do it.”
President Obama in an interview with CBS News’ Scott Pelley
Politicians lie. We all know it. Congressmen, Senators, Cabinet Members even Presidents lie. The truth is that prevarication knows no party lines. It’s not more prevalent on one side or another nor does it only happen once in awhile, it happens constantly. They lie about things great and small, important and inconsequential. They’ll even lie about the color of the sky if it becomes politically expedient to do so. They lie about each other, they lie about their records in the public and private sector and they lie about caring what you and I think, hope for and feel.
We’ve come to accept this sad truth as a nation and even begun to categorize lying for them. We’ve decided to arbitrarily call some lies worse than others so we can better accept the fact that we never know when they’re telling the truth. Thanks to Bill Clinton, we now have a new category of lies. Lies about your private life are suddenly out of bounds and cannot be held up as evidence of poor character or a possible fault in leadership. Lying in your private life no longer matters when put into the context of your job performance. That’s fine if you live in a vacuum.
The media is complicit in helping us categorize lies told by politicians. In fact, they’ve led the charge in defining what constitutes a big lie and what constitutes a lie that doesn’t really matter. Republicans tell big lies, Democrats lie about things that don’t matter for the most part. Case in point: Anthony Weiner. The mainstream media by and large saw no problem that Weiner lied about the scandal that eventually forced him from office. Conversely, the lies told by Mark Foley were egregious and unforgivable according to Newsweek. Foley faced an unrelenting media barrage that sought to expose him for the creep he truly was yet did everything they could to minimalize the exposure of what a creep Anthony Weiner was. When hiding the truth was eventually unattainable, they changed their tactic to downplaying the severity of the scandal saying instead that it was his personal life and we had no right to stick our noses in it. It became a lie that didn’t really matter.
I started this piece with a quote from the President as a way to highlight the kind of lies that I’m talking about. The everyday, garden variety lies that politicians spew with amazing frequency. We have all become so jaded by the lies they tell that we hardly raise our eyebrows when a true whopper comes along. That quote is not just a lie. It’s a true whopper. More than being a lie, it’s a threat and that ventures into a whole new category of lying done by politicians. This particular lie though is of the variety that most often comes from the left. More often than not it comes from desperate Democrats trying hard to scare the right people into believing them. President Obama leveled the “lie laser” at seniors, the disabled and veterans and pulled the trigger hoping to singe as many people as possible.
It is, quite honestly, the most despicable lie that I have heard uttered by a politician in a very long time. Two that spring to mind are;
“I am not a crook.” Richard M. Nixon
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” Bill Clinton
Not since Alexander Hamilton call John Adams a hermaphrodite has the political lie been so egregious, so obviously false and so easily refuted. Before I go into too much detail about the lies told by this man let me share some facts with you first.
During the period of May 12 - June 7, 2011, the federal government took in 296 billion dollars. That’s less than a month when you look at it. Interest payments on our debt totaled 14 billion dollars during the same period. Basic math tells me that there’s about 282 billion dollars left over for all federal spending during that period. Despite what the President may say, there is more than enough money to cover both the debt and the day to day operational costs of the federal government. The government takes in more than 2 trillion dollars in revenue annually even with the “low” tax rates that we currently enjoy. Sorry Mr. President, but math can be a bitch sometimes. Now, I’m not a degreed economist but I can add and subtract like the wind.
What the President is doing can only be termed economic terrorism. The truly disgusting part is that he’s doing it to senior citizens. He’s lying to the least among us as a means to an end. The end is tax increases on anyone making more than $250,000 a year and he’s willing to look your grandmother in the eye and tell her that her monthly check is in doubt to get what he wants. He’s more like a petulant child being told no so he’s going to hold his breath until he gets his way. The trouble is, too many people would believe him because most of them don’t think anyone would tell a lie that big and expect us to believe it. Still others would believe because they have no understanding of how money works in the federal government.
Let me ask another pertinent question. If Obama couldn’t get a tax hike done during the 2 years he controlled the White House and the Congress, why does he now expect Republicans to hand him their certain doom and his imminent reelection now? If raising taxes back in December of last year was so potentially injurious to the economy as to be out of the question, why would he think it’s a good idea now? Is the economy any better? Are the unemployment numbers any lower now as opposed to then. Not really. He’s insisting on tax hikes now only as a way to shatter the confidence that the republican base has in it’s new members in the House and Senate which he knows will ultimately hand him a victory in 2012. Not only his but a victory in the House as well. If Boehner or McConnell cave on the issue of tax increases they can kiss any hope for a majority in either house goodbye for at least 4 more years. Let’s read that quote one more time:
“I cannot guarantee that those checks go out…if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be money in the coffers to do it.”
Are we really supposed to believe that he would allow senior’s checks to stop before he’d consider shutting something nonessential off first? He does, after all, have the power to designate what gets paid and what doesn’t in the event the debt ceiling isn’t raised. The country would still be able to pay it’s bills for quite a few months before the effects of our current spending and taxation levels made it impossible to stay above water. I ran into a similar problem with my own personal “economy” recently due to increased healthcare costs and rising food and fuel prices. I’ll set the scenario and then let you judge who is the better economist, Obama or me.
Within the last few months, my hours at work had been reduced slightly due to what we call the “seasonal slowdown” It happens every year but with the economy the way it is, I found myself spending more on things like healthcare and food. Part of my own personal economy was unemployed so revenues had taken a dip accordingly. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? I sat down with my Treasury Secretary, my wife, and asked for ways to boost revenues or reduce spending. She came up with several very good ideas and we set about implementing them to prevent reaching our own “debt ceiling” and seeing our economy collapse. We looked at discretionary items that we could cut back on until the revenue crisis passed and came to the conclusion that there were several things that we spent too much money on and could ill afford to continue like…our addiction to cable TV and our DVR. We restructured our healthcare plan to reflect our actual needs and decided to forego the fancy cell phones and home phone plan we had always had. We got a Magic Jack as a gift and our cost for home phone dropped from $40 per month to $2 per month. A few minor cuts later and after looking at the balance sheet, our current revenue far exceeded our monthly demands. As I said, I’m not a degreed economic professional but even I know when I can and can’t raise revenue(taxes) and when and where I can cut out the pork spending to achieve the same net effect. By cutting the fat from my budget, I have effectively increased my revenue stream.
Is the President not smart enough to see this? Or is he just so inured with the idea of taxing the evil rich that he simply will not see how easy it is to trim the fat? The Federal Government spends more than $300,000 every year to study the effects of marijuana on monkeys during their menstrual cycles. Is that more important than paying social security benefits? We annually spend more than 1 million dollars to study the effects of mercury on fish and this is somehow more important than sending checks out to our disabled veterans?
That’s why I find his lie about checks not going out to be so offensive. First and foremost he’s using the politics of fear in such a way as to needlessly frighten millions upon millions of senior citizens, like my mother. Secondly, he’s insulting the intelligence of those of us who can actually add and subtract.
I am smarter than the President. I am also smarter than everyone at MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times and NPR. I am in fact, smarter than Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist and I have just proven it. Well, I’m either smarter than all those vaunted denizens of the media…or I am simply telling the truth where they are not.
You be the judge.
President Obama in an interview with CBS News’ Scott Pelley
Politicians lie. We all know it. Congressmen, Senators, Cabinet Members even Presidents lie. The truth is that prevarication knows no party lines. It’s not more prevalent on one side or another nor does it only happen once in awhile, it happens constantly. They lie about things great and small, important and inconsequential. They’ll even lie about the color of the sky if it becomes politically expedient to do so. They lie about each other, they lie about their records in the public and private sector and they lie about caring what you and I think, hope for and feel.
We’ve come to accept this sad truth as a nation and even begun to categorize lying for them. We’ve decided to arbitrarily call some lies worse than others so we can better accept the fact that we never know when they’re telling the truth. Thanks to Bill Clinton, we now have a new category of lies. Lies about your private life are suddenly out of bounds and cannot be held up as evidence of poor character or a possible fault in leadership. Lying in your private life no longer matters when put into the context of your job performance. That’s fine if you live in a vacuum.
The media is complicit in helping us categorize lies told by politicians. In fact, they’ve led the charge in defining what constitutes a big lie and what constitutes a lie that doesn’t really matter. Republicans tell big lies, Democrats lie about things that don’t matter for the most part. Case in point: Anthony Weiner. The mainstream media by and large saw no problem that Weiner lied about the scandal that eventually forced him from office. Conversely, the lies told by Mark Foley were egregious and unforgivable according to Newsweek. Foley faced an unrelenting media barrage that sought to expose him for the creep he truly was yet did everything they could to minimalize the exposure of what a creep Anthony Weiner was. When hiding the truth was eventually unattainable, they changed their tactic to downplaying the severity of the scandal saying instead that it was his personal life and we had no right to stick our noses in it. It became a lie that didn’t really matter.
I started this piece with a quote from the President as a way to highlight the kind of lies that I’m talking about. The everyday, garden variety lies that politicians spew with amazing frequency. We have all become so jaded by the lies they tell that we hardly raise our eyebrows when a true whopper comes along. That quote is not just a lie. It’s a true whopper. More than being a lie, it’s a threat and that ventures into a whole new category of lying done by politicians. This particular lie though is of the variety that most often comes from the left. More often than not it comes from desperate Democrats trying hard to scare the right people into believing them. President Obama leveled the “lie laser” at seniors, the disabled and veterans and pulled the trigger hoping to singe as many people as possible.
It is, quite honestly, the most despicable lie that I have heard uttered by a politician in a very long time. Two that spring to mind are;
“I am not a crook.” Richard M. Nixon
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” Bill Clinton
Not since Alexander Hamilton call John Adams a hermaphrodite has the political lie been so egregious, so obviously false and so easily refuted. Before I go into too much detail about the lies told by this man let me share some facts with you first.
During the period of May 12 - June 7, 2011, the federal government took in 296 billion dollars. That’s less than a month when you look at it. Interest payments on our debt totaled 14 billion dollars during the same period. Basic math tells me that there’s about 282 billion dollars left over for all federal spending during that period. Despite what the President may say, there is more than enough money to cover both the debt and the day to day operational costs of the federal government. The government takes in more than 2 trillion dollars in revenue annually even with the “low” tax rates that we currently enjoy. Sorry Mr. President, but math can be a bitch sometimes. Now, I’m not a degreed economist but I can add and subtract like the wind.
What the President is doing can only be termed economic terrorism. The truly disgusting part is that he’s doing it to senior citizens. He’s lying to the least among us as a means to an end. The end is tax increases on anyone making more than $250,000 a year and he’s willing to look your grandmother in the eye and tell her that her monthly check is in doubt to get what he wants. He’s more like a petulant child being told no so he’s going to hold his breath until he gets his way. The trouble is, too many people would believe him because most of them don’t think anyone would tell a lie that big and expect us to believe it. Still others would believe because they have no understanding of how money works in the federal government.
Let me ask another pertinent question. If Obama couldn’t get a tax hike done during the 2 years he controlled the White House and the Congress, why does he now expect Republicans to hand him their certain doom and his imminent reelection now? If raising taxes back in December of last year was so potentially injurious to the economy as to be out of the question, why would he think it’s a good idea now? Is the economy any better? Are the unemployment numbers any lower now as opposed to then. Not really. He’s insisting on tax hikes now only as a way to shatter the confidence that the republican base has in it’s new members in the House and Senate which he knows will ultimately hand him a victory in 2012. Not only his but a victory in the House as well. If Boehner or McConnell cave on the issue of tax increases they can kiss any hope for a majority in either house goodbye for at least 4 more years. Let’s read that quote one more time:
“I cannot guarantee that those checks go out…if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be money in the coffers to do it.”
Are we really supposed to believe that he would allow senior’s checks to stop before he’d consider shutting something nonessential off first? He does, after all, have the power to designate what gets paid and what doesn’t in the event the debt ceiling isn’t raised. The country would still be able to pay it’s bills for quite a few months before the effects of our current spending and taxation levels made it impossible to stay above water. I ran into a similar problem with my own personal “economy” recently due to increased healthcare costs and rising food and fuel prices. I’ll set the scenario and then let you judge who is the better economist, Obama or me.
Within the last few months, my hours at work had been reduced slightly due to what we call the “seasonal slowdown” It happens every year but with the economy the way it is, I found myself spending more on things like healthcare and food. Part of my own personal economy was unemployed so revenues had taken a dip accordingly. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? I sat down with my Treasury Secretary, my wife, and asked for ways to boost revenues or reduce spending. She came up with several very good ideas and we set about implementing them to prevent reaching our own “debt ceiling” and seeing our economy collapse. We looked at discretionary items that we could cut back on until the revenue crisis passed and came to the conclusion that there were several things that we spent too much money on and could ill afford to continue like…our addiction to cable TV and our DVR. We restructured our healthcare plan to reflect our actual needs and decided to forego the fancy cell phones and home phone plan we had always had. We got a Magic Jack as a gift and our cost for home phone dropped from $40 per month to $2 per month. A few minor cuts later and after looking at the balance sheet, our current revenue far exceeded our monthly demands. As I said, I’m not a degreed economic professional but even I know when I can and can’t raise revenue(taxes) and when and where I can cut out the pork spending to achieve the same net effect. By cutting the fat from my budget, I have effectively increased my revenue stream.
Is the President not smart enough to see this? Or is he just so inured with the idea of taxing the evil rich that he simply will not see how easy it is to trim the fat? The Federal Government spends more than $300,000 every year to study the effects of marijuana on monkeys during their menstrual cycles. Is that more important than paying social security benefits? We annually spend more than 1 million dollars to study the effects of mercury on fish and this is somehow more important than sending checks out to our disabled veterans?
That’s why I find his lie about checks not going out to be so offensive. First and foremost he’s using the politics of fear in such a way as to needlessly frighten millions upon millions of senior citizens, like my mother. Secondly, he’s insulting the intelligence of those of us who can actually add and subtract.
I am smarter than the President. I am also smarter than everyone at MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times and NPR. I am in fact, smarter than Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist and I have just proven it. Well, I’m either smarter than all those vaunted denizens of the media…or I am simply telling the truth where they are not.
You be the judge.
On Our Behalf
Let me first preface this little missive by stating categorically and for the record that I am NOT a constitutional scholar, a constitutional lawyer or a constitutional expert. I'm what would be more probably called a constitutional maven, aficionado...or more simply...an admirer. It is believed by most people who understand it to be the most brilliant declaration of human rights ever penned by the hands of men. It made clear that freedom was the natural state of men on Earth and that that freedom was bestowed not by other men, but by a creator whose intention was that all men would live free regardless of race, creed or religious belief.
I've viewed this document with my own eyes as well as the Declaration of Independence in the National Archives. It was a strange set of events that led me to the spot where those documents were housed but that is another story for another day. Long story short, I convinced my former wife to take our annual anniversary trip to Washington D.C. in November so that I might stand on the steps of the Supreme Court like some groupie trying to get Antonin Scalia's autograph. I can be very persuasive it seems. Having been a history buff since high school, a trip to DC was like going to Disneyland to me. I wanted to see it all but I wanted the trip to culminate with a trip to the National Archives to see the founding documents.
I bought the replicas of the Constitution and Declaration in the gift shop and proudly displayed them in my den back at home. I felt a sense of pride as an American for having journeyed to DC to experience what many never do. I felt prouder still to have been born in the country that essentially set the entire world free with it’s founding. Freedom is not a uniquely American thing really. It is what the entire world should be but is not.
In recent weeks, there has been a lot of talk about our constitution and what it means to modern men. The rise of the Tea Party has brought our need to adhere to it more strongly to the fore but there are always voices on he other side who seek to cast aspersions on it and call it a dry, dusty document with little meaning in today’s world. Most on the right see the constitution as a starting point for all discussions on policy and procedure, to be followed closely with precious little interpretation unless by the high court. Some on the left, however, see the constitution as an impediment to social change, as a roadblock to be skirted around at every turn. President Obama described the constitution this way:
“It’s a charter of negative liberties. It says what the federal and state governments can’t do to you but it doesn’t say what the government MUST do on your behalf.”
(emphasis mine)
As one who actually is a constitutional scholar, Mr. Obama should understand that that was the whole point of the constitution. It was to provide a limit on the power of government. It is a charter of negative liberties to one who sees the government as all powerful. It’s a charter of positive liberties to those of us who see it as a weapon against a tyrannical government seeking to do what MUST be done on our behalf. Never has there been a more slippery slope than allowing government to decide what must be done on our behalf. If mandating an American to buy health insurance MUST be done, what lies in store next? How deep does that rabbit hole go before we discover that we have no rights anymore? Let’s play a little game and see how it turns out.
Problem: Fatty foods cause obesity and health problems later in life. Some people will not change their eating habits though.
Solution: Government MUST step in to disallow the consumption of fatty foods. Either through taxing the food itself at a much higher rate or disallowing medical care based on diet choices.
Problem: Modern life dictates the need for ever growing energy needs and consumption. Some people will not change their behavior though.
Solution: Government MUST step in and force Americans to lower their energy requirements through higher costs or less access to usage.
At this point some of you have decided that I may be getting a little paranoid but ask yourself, when was the last time you saw an incandescent light bulb on the shelf of a Home Depot? The death of Edison’s brilliant invention at the hands of well meaning but poorly misguided government bureaucrats is only the beginning though. That too, is a story for another day however.
What prompted this note was a story I read recently in Time magazine titled “One Document: Under Siege” by managing editor Richard Stengel. In it, Mr. Stengel makes clear that the constitution is merely a blueprint. According to him, the Founders saw the constitution “as a set of principles, not a code of law.”
Is the constitution not the foundation upon which all law and the ability to govern is held up? Without a constitution, there is no law, no just governance and no liberty for the people. Liberty and freedom do not come from the constitution any more than they come from government. Freedom is bestowed at birth by virtue of birth itself. No man can make another man free. Men can only take freedoms away from other men. The constitution makes certain that men can be governed by other men but only so long as all men adhere to a set of laws and principles.
Stengel goes on to talk about the “kinetic military action” in Libya and the President’s apparent disregard of the War Powers Act and describes it this way:
“The War Powers Resolution is a check on presidential power, but the President seeks to balance this by, well, ignoring it. That’s not unconstitutional; that’s how our system works.”
Really? The President can choose to ignore the constitution when it suits a political or other goal? I wonder if Mr. Stengel would be so flippant if it were the first amendment being ignored and his paper was shut down. He is right in one respect though. This President, more than any other, has chosen to ignore the constitution in a wide variety of cases and each time he does it, he weakens the document irreparably.
Obamacare aside, flouting the War Powers Resolution is perhaps the most grave abuse of presidential power. There have been three Presidents who have abused the War Powers Resolution in modern times; Harry Truman in Korea, that wasn’t a war, that was a police action…sound familiar? ; Bill Clinton in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo and most recently, by Barack Obama in Libya.
So, from it’s ratification in 1789 to 1950, every president, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the rest, Polk, they all went to Congress either for authorization or a declaration. That is until Democrat Presidents’ saw it as an obstacle to be avoided. The resolution allows the President to repel sudden attacks, e.g. the attack on Pearl Harbor or 9/11, but in any other case, only Congress has the power to declare hostilities on another nation.
President Bush spent more than a year seeking approval to invade Iraq to oust a vicious dictator. It was a year of listening to Democrats call his request a rush to judgment and not in the best interests of the country but strangely, I hear none of those cries from the left about Libya. What national interest is served with military action there? The left’s argument for action there is eerily similar to Bush’ arguments for invading Iraq. There’s a bad man there who abuses and harms his people and he must be removed. The main and very important difference is that President Bush made his case to Congress until he got approval and THEN he acted. Not as the “cowboy” he was called and certainly not unilaterally as Obama has done. Hell, Obama wasn’t even in the country when he authorized the use of force in Libya.
For those of you about to say that the UN or NATO initiated this action, the constitution also makes plain that no treaty, charter or other agreement between nations can supersede the power of the Congress to declare war.
I’ve strayed a bit from the Time article and from my point so let’s return.
In what can only be described as extreme short term memory loss, Mr. Stengel then proceeds to tell the reader whether America “defaults on our national debt is not only reckless; it’s probably unconstitutional.”
I see now. I think I understand how this works after all. The constitution should only be adhered to strictly depending on your party affiliation and who’s in the White House.
Recently I’ve heard everyone from Fareed Zakaria to Chris Mathews and Ed Schultz calling the constitution outdated, almost irrelevant and in desperate need of an overhaul.
Well, there is also a well defined process by which changes can be made to the constitution but in modern times, that process is too complicated to be bothered with so we’ll just let the courts do it instead. We’ll appoint activist judges who also see the constitution as a document that has fallen behind the times and must be ignored so that government can do what it MUST do…on our behalf.
I've viewed this document with my own eyes as well as the Declaration of Independence in the National Archives. It was a strange set of events that led me to the spot where those documents were housed but that is another story for another day. Long story short, I convinced my former wife to take our annual anniversary trip to Washington D.C. in November so that I might stand on the steps of the Supreme Court like some groupie trying to get Antonin Scalia's autograph. I can be very persuasive it seems. Having been a history buff since high school, a trip to DC was like going to Disneyland to me. I wanted to see it all but I wanted the trip to culminate with a trip to the National Archives to see the founding documents.
I bought the replicas of the Constitution and Declaration in the gift shop and proudly displayed them in my den back at home. I felt a sense of pride as an American for having journeyed to DC to experience what many never do. I felt prouder still to have been born in the country that essentially set the entire world free with it’s founding. Freedom is not a uniquely American thing really. It is what the entire world should be but is not.
In recent weeks, there has been a lot of talk about our constitution and what it means to modern men. The rise of the Tea Party has brought our need to adhere to it more strongly to the fore but there are always voices on he other side who seek to cast aspersions on it and call it a dry, dusty document with little meaning in today’s world. Most on the right see the constitution as a starting point for all discussions on policy and procedure, to be followed closely with precious little interpretation unless by the high court. Some on the left, however, see the constitution as an impediment to social change, as a roadblock to be skirted around at every turn. President Obama described the constitution this way:
“It’s a charter of negative liberties. It says what the federal and state governments can’t do to you but it doesn’t say what the government MUST do on your behalf.”
(emphasis mine)
As one who actually is a constitutional scholar, Mr. Obama should understand that that was the whole point of the constitution. It was to provide a limit on the power of government. It is a charter of negative liberties to one who sees the government as all powerful. It’s a charter of positive liberties to those of us who see it as a weapon against a tyrannical government seeking to do what MUST be done on our behalf. Never has there been a more slippery slope than allowing government to decide what must be done on our behalf. If mandating an American to buy health insurance MUST be done, what lies in store next? How deep does that rabbit hole go before we discover that we have no rights anymore? Let’s play a little game and see how it turns out.
Problem: Fatty foods cause obesity and health problems later in life. Some people will not change their eating habits though.
Solution: Government MUST step in to disallow the consumption of fatty foods. Either through taxing the food itself at a much higher rate or disallowing medical care based on diet choices.
Problem: Modern life dictates the need for ever growing energy needs and consumption. Some people will not change their behavior though.
Solution: Government MUST step in and force Americans to lower their energy requirements through higher costs or less access to usage.
At this point some of you have decided that I may be getting a little paranoid but ask yourself, when was the last time you saw an incandescent light bulb on the shelf of a Home Depot? The death of Edison’s brilliant invention at the hands of well meaning but poorly misguided government bureaucrats is only the beginning though. That too, is a story for another day however.
What prompted this note was a story I read recently in Time magazine titled “One Document: Under Siege” by managing editor Richard Stengel. In it, Mr. Stengel makes clear that the constitution is merely a blueprint. According to him, the Founders saw the constitution “as a set of principles, not a code of law.”
Is the constitution not the foundation upon which all law and the ability to govern is held up? Without a constitution, there is no law, no just governance and no liberty for the people. Liberty and freedom do not come from the constitution any more than they come from government. Freedom is bestowed at birth by virtue of birth itself. No man can make another man free. Men can only take freedoms away from other men. The constitution makes certain that men can be governed by other men but only so long as all men adhere to a set of laws and principles.
Stengel goes on to talk about the “kinetic military action” in Libya and the President’s apparent disregard of the War Powers Act and describes it this way:
“The War Powers Resolution is a check on presidential power, but the President seeks to balance this by, well, ignoring it. That’s not unconstitutional; that’s how our system works.”
Really? The President can choose to ignore the constitution when it suits a political or other goal? I wonder if Mr. Stengel would be so flippant if it were the first amendment being ignored and his paper was shut down. He is right in one respect though. This President, more than any other, has chosen to ignore the constitution in a wide variety of cases and each time he does it, he weakens the document irreparably.
Obamacare aside, flouting the War Powers Resolution is perhaps the most grave abuse of presidential power. There have been three Presidents who have abused the War Powers Resolution in modern times; Harry Truman in Korea, that wasn’t a war, that was a police action…sound familiar? ; Bill Clinton in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo and most recently, by Barack Obama in Libya.
So, from it’s ratification in 1789 to 1950, every president, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the rest, Polk, they all went to Congress either for authorization or a declaration. That is until Democrat Presidents’ saw it as an obstacle to be avoided. The resolution allows the President to repel sudden attacks, e.g. the attack on Pearl Harbor or 9/11, but in any other case, only Congress has the power to declare hostilities on another nation.
President Bush spent more than a year seeking approval to invade Iraq to oust a vicious dictator. It was a year of listening to Democrats call his request a rush to judgment and not in the best interests of the country but strangely, I hear none of those cries from the left about Libya. What national interest is served with military action there? The left’s argument for action there is eerily similar to Bush’ arguments for invading Iraq. There’s a bad man there who abuses and harms his people and he must be removed. The main and very important difference is that President Bush made his case to Congress until he got approval and THEN he acted. Not as the “cowboy” he was called and certainly not unilaterally as Obama has done. Hell, Obama wasn’t even in the country when he authorized the use of force in Libya.
For those of you about to say that the UN or NATO initiated this action, the constitution also makes plain that no treaty, charter or other agreement between nations can supersede the power of the Congress to declare war.
I’ve strayed a bit from the Time article and from my point so let’s return.
In what can only be described as extreme short term memory loss, Mr. Stengel then proceeds to tell the reader whether America “defaults on our national debt is not only reckless; it’s probably unconstitutional.”
I see now. I think I understand how this works after all. The constitution should only be adhered to strictly depending on your party affiliation and who’s in the White House.
Recently I’ve heard everyone from Fareed Zakaria to Chris Mathews and Ed Schultz calling the constitution outdated, almost irrelevant and in desperate need of an overhaul.
Well, there is also a well defined process by which changes can be made to the constitution but in modern times, that process is too complicated to be bothered with so we’ll just let the courts do it instead. We’ll appoint activist judges who also see the constitution as a document that has fallen behind the times and must be ignored so that government can do what it MUST do…on our behalf.
AMNESTY NOW!
The Pacific northwest has been a breeding ground for liberal lunacy for many years, so what I’m about to tell you now may not come as a surprise. We all remember the plight of the northern spotted owl in Oregon back in the early nineties, right? The poor creature had been pushed to the point of extinction by the overly aggressive development of mankind and was placed on the endangered species list. All commercial logging was halted in an area rich with timber and hundreds of jobs were lost in the local timber industry as well as an economic stagnation due to those jobs disappearing. The radical greenies and the government then set about bringing the poor bird back from the brink.
It was a cause you could really get behind and the bird soon became the symbol for the conservation movement as it railed against the never ceasing demands of human industry.
Well, fast forward to today and that majestic bird is once again under attack from an aggressive species that seeks to force it from it’s protected territory The attack isn’t coming from who you think it is though. It’s coming from another species of owl, the barred owl, that is better suited to the environment, able to nest in a wider area and has a diet that includes much that the northern spotted owl will not touch. Also, the barred owl is not a outside species introduced to the environment, it’s native to the pacific northwest area to begin with. The two species have coexisted alongside each other for hundreds of years but the barred owl proved to be the stronger of the two.
In simple terms, the barred owl is a hardier species more aptly suited to the environment and thus, is pushing the spotted owl down the evolutionary ladder and back to the brink of extinction. This is natural selection at it’s finest. This is not man encroaching on yet another defenseless animal and destroying it’s habitat, this is the way of nature. When nature selects a species for extinction, there is no Supreme Court appeal process. There is no legislation or “feel good” policy that can deny the inevitable. When you are selected for extinction, that’s it. Ask the dinosaurs how they fared in the “natural selection lawsuit”.
I read this story with gusto for two reasons. First and most importantly, it points out the folly of the green movement when it seeks to limit man’s progress for the sake of an animal that will die out anyway, and secondly because it brought to mind another issue that once again rears it’s ugly head in our pre-election season.
Immigration.
Yes, I said immigration. How do the two link you might ask? I’m glad you asked. Let me expound on my point and you will see the wisdom of this connection.
Let’s put this in terms that everyone can understand.
The barred owl just wants to come into the spotted owl’s land and raise it’s little owl family. It just wants a better way of life and besides, it’s just there to do the job the spotted owls won’t do. Why should some imaginary boundary keep the barred owl out? After all, does the spotted owl own the land in which it resides? No, I say. The earth belongs to no one species alone and I say we should immediately pass legislation providing immunity for all the barred owls so that they can stay. They’ve been there so long, they don’t know any other land. The term “anchor egg” has been bandied about by the spotted owls, racists that they are, and this must stop.
Oh yes, what are they going to do about the barred owls to further protect the spotted ones?
They’re going to hunt and KILL them for heavens sake. Thousands upon thousands of birds will be slaughtered mercilessly every year to control their breeding and encroachment. This is simply barbaric, I tell you. Look, we can’t simply deport every barred owl, that would be far too costly so I say instead that we offer amnesty and bring the noble barred owl out of the shadows. Free to pursue the American Owl dream, to live in the freest territory on Earth
Besides, it IS the backbone of the environment of the Pacific Northwest…isn’t it?
It was a cause you could really get behind and the bird soon became the symbol for the conservation movement as it railed against the never ceasing demands of human industry.
Well, fast forward to today and that majestic bird is once again under attack from an aggressive species that seeks to force it from it’s protected territory The attack isn’t coming from who you think it is though. It’s coming from another species of owl, the barred owl, that is better suited to the environment, able to nest in a wider area and has a diet that includes much that the northern spotted owl will not touch. Also, the barred owl is not a outside species introduced to the environment, it’s native to the pacific northwest area to begin with. The two species have coexisted alongside each other for hundreds of years but the barred owl proved to be the stronger of the two.
In simple terms, the barred owl is a hardier species more aptly suited to the environment and thus, is pushing the spotted owl down the evolutionary ladder and back to the brink of extinction. This is natural selection at it’s finest. This is not man encroaching on yet another defenseless animal and destroying it’s habitat, this is the way of nature. When nature selects a species for extinction, there is no Supreme Court appeal process. There is no legislation or “feel good” policy that can deny the inevitable. When you are selected for extinction, that’s it. Ask the dinosaurs how they fared in the “natural selection lawsuit”.
I read this story with gusto for two reasons. First and most importantly, it points out the folly of the green movement when it seeks to limit man’s progress for the sake of an animal that will die out anyway, and secondly because it brought to mind another issue that once again rears it’s ugly head in our pre-election season.
Immigration.
Yes, I said immigration. How do the two link you might ask? I’m glad you asked. Let me expound on my point and you will see the wisdom of this connection.
Let’s put this in terms that everyone can understand.
The barred owl just wants to come into the spotted owl’s land and raise it’s little owl family. It just wants a better way of life and besides, it’s just there to do the job the spotted owls won’t do. Why should some imaginary boundary keep the barred owl out? After all, does the spotted owl own the land in which it resides? No, I say. The earth belongs to no one species alone and I say we should immediately pass legislation providing immunity for all the barred owls so that they can stay. They’ve been there so long, they don’t know any other land. The term “anchor egg” has been bandied about by the spotted owls, racists that they are, and this must stop.
Oh yes, what are they going to do about the barred owls to further protect the spotted ones?
They’re going to hunt and KILL them for heavens sake. Thousands upon thousands of birds will be slaughtered mercilessly every year to control their breeding and encroachment. This is simply barbaric, I tell you. Look, we can’t simply deport every barred owl, that would be far too costly so I say instead that we offer amnesty and bring the noble barred owl out of the shadows. Free to pursue the American Owl dream, to live in the freest territory on Earth
Besides, it IS the backbone of the environment of the Pacific Northwest…isn’t it?
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
An open letter to Sarah Palin...
Mrs. Palin,
May I call you Sarah? After all your exposure in the press the past three years, I feel like I know you. Better than any other politician I've ever followed before in fact. More than Reagan, Bush and Nixon combined. I've seen and read more minutiae about you than at any other time during an election season. I've alternately heard how stupid you are and in the next breath, what a savvy politico you are. One of those stances has to be true. The other, by virtue of reality, must be false. I choose to believe that you are a caring human being, a good mother and wife and a patriot at heart. I believe that your vision for America closely matches my own. I refuse to believe the numerous and horrible rumors that are sometimes spread about you in the press. No one that hasn't killed 6 million Jews can be as bad as the press obviously believes you are. Having said that, I have taken quite a bit of flak for my support and admiration of you. As the old adage says however, "When you start getting flak, you must be over the target." That derision has come from both the left and the right. I am never surprised by the left's hatred of you. Yes, I use the word hatred because mild dislike doesn't prompt one to verbally abuse a special needs child or claim that you are the most incompetent and corrupt individual ever to hold public office. As I said, that doesn't really surprise me. I've grown used to hearing that kind of extremism from the voices on the left.
What does surprise me is listening to my compadres on the right say many of the same things about you. Hearing them spew the same lines that I read and hear from the mainstream press is disconcerting for me. Mind you, these are the same people who like me, were crushed when John McCain won the Republican nomination but were suddenly and thankfully buoyed by his naming you as his running mate. I voted for YOU Sarah, not for McCain. Most of the votes he won in 2008 were for you as I'm sure you already know. Fast forward to three years, countless investigations, (fruitless ones I might add) and dozens of scurrilous rumors later and many of the people who lauded your Vice Presidential selection now equate you to a walking joke in a dress and sensible shoes. I applaud your strength against the mob-like chorus that assails your every move. Lord knows I wouldn't be equal to the challenge. I honestly don't know how you do it. Maybe it's your faith, maybe it's your belief that no one can tell you who you are or maybe...just maybe it's the old "sticks and stones" thing. Regardless, you have managed dignity and composure in the face of the most hateful rhetoric I have ever seen any political personality, male or female, go through. I often wonder if Chris Matthews or Ed Schultz could stand the glare of the spotlight you have endured and still possess something resembling a "normal" family life. I suspect they wouldn't be able to take the pressure that you have taken.
Enough of me telling you what you already know though. I should get to the point of this letter before I lose you completely. The point of my letter is this:
Run Sarah. Run as fast and as hard as you can and you should reach 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by January of 2013. You know how much your country needs you, don't you? I've read your posts in Facebook and heard you speak at events all over the country so I'm certain you understand the dire situation we are all in right now. Our past is being rewritten by Harvard bookworms who have no love for those of us who still believe the dream. Our present is marred by slick talking used car salesmen who seek only to enrich themselves and our future, for the first time in 224 years...is in doubt.
There is a wonderful quote from the movie "Gladiator" that comes to my mind every time I see another of my rights infringed by our current President and it is this,
"There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter."
Autumn approaches quickly Sarah. Do you not see the leaves turning color? Do you not feel the chill in the air? The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder with every passing day. There once was a dream that was America. It stood for freedom, liberty and self reliance. A dream that drove men to defeat arguably the strongest military power on the planet all in the name of self determination. A belief that men could rule themselves if given the chance and shown the way by honorable and trustworthy leaders. I believe that leader is you. As do many of those in my circle of friends and across the nation as well.
Run Sarah. Run and we will follow you. Lead the way for a weary nation, lost and discouraged by scandalous and unscrupulous "leaders". Disillusioned that so many of our countrymen have forgotten about the dream that was America. The dream that sought to make men free, brother against brother. The dream that drove us to the moon and beyond. The dream that filled my heart the day I stood in the National Archives and read the Declaration of Independence and the Bill Of Rights. The dream I refuse to see slip away for my children. For your children. For all children, everywhere in this most compassionate nation on Earth.
I will take my lumps for my belief that you are the right person at the right time. I will endure the ridicule of my conservative friends and the scorn and derision of my liberal friends. It is, after all, the least I can do, is it not? For it is minuscule when compared to the derision, scorn and ridicule that you and your family have faced, lo these many months.
For the dream that was America...
Run Sarah...run.
May I call you Sarah? After all your exposure in the press the past three years, I feel like I know you. Better than any other politician I've ever followed before in fact. More than Reagan, Bush and Nixon combined. I've seen and read more minutiae about you than at any other time during an election season. I've alternately heard how stupid you are and in the next breath, what a savvy politico you are. One of those stances has to be true. The other, by virtue of reality, must be false. I choose to believe that you are a caring human being, a good mother and wife and a patriot at heart. I believe that your vision for America closely matches my own. I refuse to believe the numerous and horrible rumors that are sometimes spread about you in the press. No one that hasn't killed 6 million Jews can be as bad as the press obviously believes you are. Having said that, I have taken quite a bit of flak for my support and admiration of you. As the old adage says however, "When you start getting flak, you must be over the target." That derision has come from both the left and the right. I am never surprised by the left's hatred of you. Yes, I use the word hatred because mild dislike doesn't prompt one to verbally abuse a special needs child or claim that you are the most incompetent and corrupt individual ever to hold public office. As I said, that doesn't really surprise me. I've grown used to hearing that kind of extremism from the voices on the left.
What does surprise me is listening to my compadres on the right say many of the same things about you. Hearing them spew the same lines that I read and hear from the mainstream press is disconcerting for me. Mind you, these are the same people who like me, were crushed when John McCain won the Republican nomination but were suddenly and thankfully buoyed by his naming you as his running mate. I voted for YOU Sarah, not for McCain. Most of the votes he won in 2008 were for you as I'm sure you already know. Fast forward to three years, countless investigations, (fruitless ones I might add) and dozens of scurrilous rumors later and many of the people who lauded your Vice Presidential selection now equate you to a walking joke in a dress and sensible shoes. I applaud your strength against the mob-like chorus that assails your every move. Lord knows I wouldn't be equal to the challenge. I honestly don't know how you do it. Maybe it's your faith, maybe it's your belief that no one can tell you who you are or maybe...just maybe it's the old "sticks and stones" thing. Regardless, you have managed dignity and composure in the face of the most hateful rhetoric I have ever seen any political personality, male or female, go through. I often wonder if Chris Matthews or Ed Schultz could stand the glare of the spotlight you have endured and still possess something resembling a "normal" family life. I suspect they wouldn't be able to take the pressure that you have taken.
Enough of me telling you what you already know though. I should get to the point of this letter before I lose you completely. The point of my letter is this:
Run Sarah. Run as fast and as hard as you can and you should reach 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by January of 2013. You know how much your country needs you, don't you? I've read your posts in Facebook and heard you speak at events all over the country so I'm certain you understand the dire situation we are all in right now. Our past is being rewritten by Harvard bookworms who have no love for those of us who still believe the dream. Our present is marred by slick talking used car salesmen who seek only to enrich themselves and our future, for the first time in 224 years...is in doubt.
There is a wonderful quote from the movie "Gladiator" that comes to my mind every time I see another of my rights infringed by our current President and it is this,
"There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter."
Autumn approaches quickly Sarah. Do you not see the leaves turning color? Do you not feel the chill in the air? The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder with every passing day. There once was a dream that was America. It stood for freedom, liberty and self reliance. A dream that drove men to defeat arguably the strongest military power on the planet all in the name of self determination. A belief that men could rule themselves if given the chance and shown the way by honorable and trustworthy leaders. I believe that leader is you. As do many of those in my circle of friends and across the nation as well.
Run Sarah. Run and we will follow you. Lead the way for a weary nation, lost and discouraged by scandalous and unscrupulous "leaders". Disillusioned that so many of our countrymen have forgotten about the dream that was America. The dream that sought to make men free, brother against brother. The dream that drove us to the moon and beyond. The dream that filled my heart the day I stood in the National Archives and read the Declaration of Independence and the Bill Of Rights. The dream I refuse to see slip away for my children. For your children. For all children, everywhere in this most compassionate nation on Earth.
I will take my lumps for my belief that you are the right person at the right time. I will endure the ridicule of my conservative friends and the scorn and derision of my liberal friends. It is, after all, the least I can do, is it not? For it is minuscule when compared to the derision, scorn and ridicule that you and your family have faced, lo these many months.
For the dream that was America...
Run Sarah...run.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Circling the wagons 'round the Weiner.
Yes, it has been a while since I've vented my spleen about some outrage or another. It's not that there haven't been any, I just find myself too busy to spare what precious time I have to point out the obvious. As any of you who have read any of my rants in the past will agree, the common underlying theme throughout most of them has been the media's penchant for liberal bias and extreme hypocrisy. Never has that been more prevalent than with the recent revelations of Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner's twitter scandal. I'll not rehash the salacious details but suffice to say there's been more than enough salaciousness to go around. I'd always hoped having a Congressman named Weiner would pay off in comedy gold and he certainly hasn't disappointed me. Lord knows I've had my fair share of punchlines at his expense but when a public figure tweets pictures of his junk AND his name just happens to be Weiner, the jokes just write themselves. I'll try my best not to take any more cheap shots at the Congressman. Not for lack of material mind you, but it's just a little too easy to be frank. Did I just say frank? Sorry. Let me once again stiffen my resolve. Oops, did it again.
See what I mean?
Sure, it's puerile and smacks of third grade humor but if you can't find humor in this you either have no sense of humor or...you're a Democrat. Which brings me neatly to my impending point. Not in recent memory have I seen the media rush to cleanse or at least, diminish, the news surrounding Rep. Weiner. In the past two weeks, the media has spent more time attempting to downplay the severity of the scandal. Make no mistake, it is indeed a scandal due in large part to the way in which he handled it at the outset. His immediate reaction was to lie about it then perpetuate it day after day, using the media as a willing accomplice until it was no longer manageable. When the truth eventually did rear it's incredibly ugly head, he finally decided to make a heartfelt plea for forgiveness from his constituents, his wife and the media he had used to his advantage. One may never know if his wife or his constituents accepted his apology. Losing his congressional seat or his marriage remains to be seen. The media, however, appears to have taken his apology to heart and have since rushed to defend the man in ways both comical and horrific. Chris Matthews laid partial blame at his wife's feet and later said "people in the rural areas of this country who are Christian conservative culturally - you can say backward if you want...don't like this kind of stuff." Howard Kurtz laid the blame on his position of authority stating that men with powerful personalities could not be expected to remain faithful. Ultimately, these men who are conquerers, should be allowed to philander at will...as long as they're Democrats. Daily Beast contributor Lee Siegel postsed a piece recently entitled, "C'Mon, America, Nobody's Perfect". Really? NPR's Nina Totenberg asked the musical question, "If his name weren’t Weiner, would we still be talking about this?"
Surely you jest. You mean the scandal and it's resulting ferocity of attention are based solely on his name? Lawrence O'Donnell, host of "The Last Word," ridicules the idea that lying should be grounds for resignation, Rachel Maddow, host of "The Rachel Maddow Show," describes the situation as "more gossip than news," and Cenk Uygur, MSNBC political commentator, says that "he lied, so what."
A scant five years ago the networks piled on 152 stories about Rep. Mark Foley in the story's first 12 days in the fall of 2006, but they weren’t the only ones with a vast left-wing disparity. Time and Newsweek each devoted cover stories and multiple pages to the Foley scandal. Time put an elephant’s rear end on the cover with the words “What a Mess...Why a tawdry Washington sex scandal may spell the end of the Republican revolution”. Newsweek had a huge picture of Foley (with a small President Bush in front of his face) with the huge headline “Off Message” and the subhead “Foley’s Secret Life: How a Predator’s E-mail Sex Scandal Could Cost Bush Congress.”
A Republican sex scandal brought down the entire party in the 2008 midterm election but we're just supposed to let the Weiner story fade to irrelevance according to the aforementioned lions of truth in the media.
In simple terms, Weiner sullied the reputation of the country in the wider world, he defiled his marriage to the woman he promised to love, honor and cherish til death they do part...or a hot coed comes along. He lied to his constituents, the media and the entire country multiple times and we're expected to just ignore it and forgive him. He can't help it, after all. He's just a man with flaws and imperfections that we all possess. Trouble is, he's not like us. He's a lawmaker and he's supposed to be a role model for the rest of us. He's one of the many stewards that this country elects and we hold them to a higher standard for a reason. If Mark Foley, Arnold Scwarzenegger, Mark Sanford and Chris Lee are to be held to a higher standard, then Weiner should be as well. Lee, in fact, resigned even before the shirtless pic he sent through Craig'sList even went public. Not Weiner. He's a bulldog who refuses to give up the power he has and his apologists in the media will do everything in their power to see to it that he remains in Congress.
Never mind that he's a walking cautionary tale about the abuses of power of what happens when you're thought process starts and ends below the waist. They'll defend him at all costs regardless of how it looks. And truth be told, it looks pretty bad from where I'm sitting. The media has no soul or objectivity and it's impending demise can no longer be ignored. I say good riddance. I won't shed a tear for them just as I feel no sense of remorse for Rep. Weiner. You did this to yourself. You've no one to blame but yourself.
See what I mean?
Sure, it's puerile and smacks of third grade humor but if you can't find humor in this you either have no sense of humor or...you're a Democrat. Which brings me neatly to my impending point. Not in recent memory have I seen the media rush to cleanse or at least, diminish, the news surrounding Rep. Weiner. In the past two weeks, the media has spent more time attempting to downplay the severity of the scandal. Make no mistake, it is indeed a scandal due in large part to the way in which he handled it at the outset. His immediate reaction was to lie about it then perpetuate it day after day, using the media as a willing accomplice until it was no longer manageable. When the truth eventually did rear it's incredibly ugly head, he finally decided to make a heartfelt plea for forgiveness from his constituents, his wife and the media he had used to his advantage. One may never know if his wife or his constituents accepted his apology. Losing his congressional seat or his marriage remains to be seen. The media, however, appears to have taken his apology to heart and have since rushed to defend the man in ways both comical and horrific. Chris Matthews laid partial blame at his wife's feet and later said "people in the rural areas of this country who are Christian conservative culturally - you can say backward if you want...don't like this kind of stuff." Howard Kurtz laid the blame on his position of authority stating that men with powerful personalities could not be expected to remain faithful. Ultimately, these men who are conquerers, should be allowed to philander at will...as long as they're Democrats. Daily Beast contributor Lee Siegel postsed a piece recently entitled, "C'Mon, America, Nobody's Perfect". Really? NPR's Nina Totenberg asked the musical question, "If his name weren’t Weiner, would we still be talking about this?"
Surely you jest. You mean the scandal and it's resulting ferocity of attention are based solely on his name? Lawrence O'Donnell, host of "The Last Word," ridicules the idea that lying should be grounds for resignation, Rachel Maddow, host of "The Rachel Maddow Show," describes the situation as "more gossip than news," and Cenk Uygur, MSNBC political commentator, says that "he lied, so what."
A scant five years ago the networks piled on 152 stories about Rep. Mark Foley in the story's first 12 days in the fall of 2006, but they weren’t the only ones with a vast left-wing disparity. Time and Newsweek each devoted cover stories and multiple pages to the Foley scandal. Time put an elephant’s rear end on the cover with the words “What a Mess...Why a tawdry Washington sex scandal may spell the end of the Republican revolution”. Newsweek had a huge picture of Foley (with a small President Bush in front of his face) with the huge headline “Off Message” and the subhead “Foley’s Secret Life: How a Predator’s E-mail Sex Scandal Could Cost Bush Congress.”
A Republican sex scandal brought down the entire party in the 2008 midterm election but we're just supposed to let the Weiner story fade to irrelevance according to the aforementioned lions of truth in the media.
In simple terms, Weiner sullied the reputation of the country in the wider world, he defiled his marriage to the woman he promised to love, honor and cherish til death they do part...or a hot coed comes along. He lied to his constituents, the media and the entire country multiple times and we're expected to just ignore it and forgive him. He can't help it, after all. He's just a man with flaws and imperfections that we all possess. Trouble is, he's not like us. He's a lawmaker and he's supposed to be a role model for the rest of us. He's one of the many stewards that this country elects and we hold them to a higher standard for a reason. If Mark Foley, Arnold Scwarzenegger, Mark Sanford and Chris Lee are to be held to a higher standard, then Weiner should be as well. Lee, in fact, resigned even before the shirtless pic he sent through Craig'sList even went public. Not Weiner. He's a bulldog who refuses to give up the power he has and his apologists in the media will do everything in their power to see to it that he remains in Congress.
Never mind that he's a walking cautionary tale about the abuses of power of what happens when you're thought process starts and ends below the waist. They'll defend him at all costs regardless of how it looks. And truth be told, it looks pretty bad from where I'm sitting. The media has no soul or objectivity and it's impending demise can no longer be ignored. I say good riddance. I won't shed a tear for them just as I feel no sense of remorse for Rep. Weiner. You did this to yourself. You've no one to blame but yourself.
Friday, November 19, 2010
The Totalitarian State Of The Union
“We are a country of laws, not of men.” - George Washington
Those immortal words still manage to provide an insight into what Washington saw as the lasting legacy of the revolution he had just helped to bring about. That men were subservient to law. All men. None were above it, not even himself.
Those laws seem a little less clear these days with the recent glut of horror stories coming out of almost every airport in America. The line between freedom and safety has been blurred so much as to leave the country in stunned shock at what many see as state sponsored sexual assault. In fact, there are several lawsuits being filed currently alleging just that.
With the newly implemented backscatter x-ray machines that literally see through clothing to the less than gentle and certainly invasive pat downs being done by TSA screeners all across the country, freedom has been degraded to the point of making the simple act of flying anywhere a Bataan grope march of humiliation.
Let's hearken back to that outdated and obscure document we call the bill of rights and read what it says about one of our most basic rights:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
That's pretty clear don't you think? The phrase "...shall not be violated..." has no gray area. It doesn't say or imply that the government can usurp that right when it deems it necessary or in times of crisis. It says simply, No warrant...no search. End of story. I would guess that most of the people who have already been through the naked scanner or the "pat down" would deem that an "unreasonable search" considering the areas that are checked. Men's groins are groped as well as women's breasts.
One irate air traveler declared flatly, "You touch my junk and I'll have you arrested." He finally declined the naked scanner and the pat down and chose to leave the airport to avoid what he felt was a humiliating and completely pointless search of his person. The government is currently charging him with failure to obey a lawful TSA request and his punishment could include a fine of over ten thousand dollars and/or imprisonment. Bear in mind that he left the airport to avoid the search and decided to travel in another way. The TSA asserts that this is still a violation and he will be prosecuted. Now, if you choose not to fly you still have to have the search performed. In Khrushchev's wildest dreams he could never have imagined the police state that we have denigrated to.
There is also a video on YouTube that has gone viral of a 3 year old girl screaming, "Stop touching me!" as a TSA agent pats her down. The video was taken by her father who just happens to be a reporter. These are not isolated incidents either. Each new day of air travel brings more accounts very similar to the previous examples. Let's examine a statement by the Deputy Director of the TSA,
" No one wants to have their 4th amendment rights violated when they board an airplane but that's what we're gonna have to do."
In that one line he acknowledges that the new security measures violate a basic civil right but we as air travelers have no other option. . It's for safety, right? The words of Benjamin Franklin come to mind in this instance, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. "
Surely if there was another way that didn't violate the constitution they would have implemented it by now. Well, in actual point of fact there is another way. Ask Israel's El Al Air how many times they've had to deal with a hijacking on one of their planes and they'll tell you just once in their entire history. They've not had an incident on a plane for more than 30 years and they don't subject passengers to unreasonable search unless they have a credible reason to do so. They rely solely on human intelligence to keep their planes safe. What most on the left would term "profiling" or what most law enforcement officers would call simple police work. It's more commonly referred to as "gut instinct" and it's helped law enforcement officers do their job for hundreds of years.
A fine example of gut instinct being the key factor in keeping the public safe is the case of the millennium bomber. In December of 1999, upon arriving on a ferry from Canada, al-Qaida operative Ahmed Ressam was arrested with a trunk full of explosives. His plan: to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. He was in possession of a legal Canadian passport, acquired with false information. NBC's Lisa Myers interviewed the alert agent responsible for foiling the plot and reports,
' “His story didn’t make sense to me,” said customs inspector Diana Dean. Now retired, Dean was working the border that night. On a hunch something wasn’t quite right, she questioned Ressam and asked him to pop his trunk. Inside were big bags of white powder that were first thought to be drugs.
Those immortal words still manage to provide an insight into what Washington saw as the lasting legacy of the revolution he had just helped to bring about. That men were subservient to law. All men. None were above it, not even himself.
Those laws seem a little less clear these days with the recent glut of horror stories coming out of almost every airport in America. The line between freedom and safety has been blurred so much as to leave the country in stunned shock at what many see as state sponsored sexual assault. In fact, there are several lawsuits being filed currently alleging just that.
With the newly implemented backscatter x-ray machines that literally see through clothing to the less than gentle and certainly invasive pat downs being done by TSA screeners all across the country, freedom has been degraded to the point of making the simple act of flying anywhere a Bataan grope march of humiliation.
Let's hearken back to that outdated and obscure document we call the bill of rights and read what it says about one of our most basic rights:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
That's pretty clear don't you think? The phrase "...shall not be violated..." has no gray area. It doesn't say or imply that the government can usurp that right when it deems it necessary or in times of crisis. It says simply, No warrant...no search. End of story. I would guess that most of the people who have already been through the naked scanner or the "pat down" would deem that an "unreasonable search" considering the areas that are checked. Men's groins are groped as well as women's breasts.
One irate air traveler declared flatly, "You touch my junk and I'll have you arrested." He finally declined the naked scanner and the pat down and chose to leave the airport to avoid what he felt was a humiliating and completely pointless search of his person. The government is currently charging him with failure to obey a lawful TSA request and his punishment could include a fine of over ten thousand dollars and/or imprisonment. Bear in mind that he left the airport to avoid the search and decided to travel in another way. The TSA asserts that this is still a violation and he will be prosecuted. Now, if you choose not to fly you still have to have the search performed. In Khrushchev's wildest dreams he could never have imagined the police state that we have denigrated to.
There is also a video on YouTube that has gone viral of a 3 year old girl screaming, "Stop touching me!" as a TSA agent pats her down. The video was taken by her father who just happens to be a reporter. These are not isolated incidents either. Each new day of air travel brings more accounts very similar to the previous examples. Let's examine a statement by the Deputy Director of the TSA,
" No one wants to have their 4th amendment rights violated when they board an airplane but that's what we're gonna have to do."
In that one line he acknowledges that the new security measures violate a basic civil right but we as air travelers have no other option. . It's for safety, right? The words of Benjamin Franklin come to mind in this instance, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. "
Surely if there was another way that didn't violate the constitution they would have implemented it by now. Well, in actual point of fact there is another way. Ask Israel's El Al Air how many times they've had to deal with a hijacking on one of their planes and they'll tell you just once in their entire history. They've not had an incident on a plane for more than 30 years and they don't subject passengers to unreasonable search unless they have a credible reason to do so. They rely solely on human intelligence to keep their planes safe. What most on the left would term "profiling" or what most law enforcement officers would call simple police work. It's more commonly referred to as "gut instinct" and it's helped law enforcement officers do their job for hundreds of years.
A fine example of gut instinct being the key factor in keeping the public safe is the case of the millennium bomber. In December of 1999, upon arriving on a ferry from Canada, al-Qaida operative Ahmed Ressam was arrested with a trunk full of explosives. His plan: to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. He was in possession of a legal Canadian passport, acquired with false information. NBC's Lisa Myers interviewed the alert agent responsible for foiling the plot and reports,
' “His story didn’t make sense to me,” said customs inspector Diana Dean. Now retired, Dean was working the border that night. On a hunch something wasn’t quite right, she questioned Ressam and asked him to pop his trunk. Inside were big bags of white powder that were first thought to be drugs.
But that night, drug tests came back negative. When investigators looked further, they found timers and realized the powder was explosives.
Dean said, “My heart dropped right into my toes when I realized what it was.”
She says no one had told her anything about being on alert for terrorists.
“I don’t recall any specific threats," she added. "I don’t recall anybody saying watch for terrorists.”
Customs officials confirm that no alert had gone out to the field."
Despite White House and 9/11 commission officials claiming that enhanced information and more focus on terrorism saved LAX from a horrific catastrophe it is the work of one very smart Border agent and one very nervous terrorist that averted this crisis.
Perhaps the most telling example of the need for human intelligence being the basic tenet of security is the story of Jose Melendez-Perez, a Puerto-Rican born United States Customs and Border Protection Inspector at Orlando International Airport who became a key figure for the 9/11 Commission when he refused entry to an alleged terrorist prior to the 20th hijacker. Thus there were only four hijackers onboard Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania, and possibly because of the shorthanded muscle on that team, the passengers were able to overcome the terrorists.
A Saudi national, Mohammed al Qahtani, landed in Orlando on a Virgin Atlantic flight. Since the Qahtani's forms were not properly filled out, he was moved to a secondary interview, conducted by Perez. The Saudi did not have a return ticket or a hotel. He had $2,800 in cash and no credit cards. Questions to where he would stay and where he would go were evasive. Besides being quite hostile, Qahtani also made contradictory statements regarding his plans.
Perez advised his superiors to have him sent back. As, according to his testimony, he sent Qahtani back out of the United States, the man allegedly turned around to him and said "something to the effect of 'I'll be back.'"
Both of the examples cited here were successful due solely to the training and innate intelligence of the agents involved. Both used their training and instincts to determine that something wasn't quite right and denied entrance to men who wanted to visit tragedy on American citizens. Neither relied on x-rays or pat downs to come to their conclusions. It is often argued that Melendez-Perez may have in fact saved the White House or the Capital building from devastation as it was determined that one of those two would be the final target for that horrible day. The people who owe their very lives to Melendez-Perez now ignore and dismiss his training as "profiling" and decide instead to subject every American to treatment that might seem common in a communist country but goes against the grain of every lesson learned from the American Revolution.
With the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday fast approaching, the airlines will soon be faced with the usual staggering numbers of travelers they accommodate every year and airports across the country will become the scene of what's being called "Opt Out Day". In an exercise of civil disobedience, thousands of passengers will simply decline the x-ray scanner and force the TSA agents to do endless pat-downs. I say, more power to them.
I'm reminded of another quote from Ben Franklin,
"Disobedience to a tyrant is obedience to God."
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
The good old days...
Since I'm stuck at home sick with a respiratory infection, I thought I'd spend a little time writing. I was going to write a note about the media coverage of last week's election but after reading my notes I realized that it's not any different from the other dozen notes I've written about media bias. The only real difference was the overtly confrontational nature from the panel at MSNBC towards Michele Bachmann and their obvious lack of objectivity as the night wore on. As the returns came in, the panel seemed less like journalists and more like the character Glum from the "Gulliver's Travels" cartoon. Remember him? Always the sad sack who would pronounce, "We're doomed. We'll never make it." One wonders if the impending sale of NBC to Comcast will shake up the blatant partisanship of MSNBC.
One interesting point during MSNBC's coverage of the election was something that didn't happen all night. Not once during the entire coverage did anyone on the panel utter the word "Teabaggers" to describe the movement that played such a pivotal role in the Republican rout. I asked myself why that would be since both Olbermann and Maddow, and to a lesser degree Chris Mathews, made it a habit of using that word freely during their regular broadcasts. Was it a directive from on high? Was it a pact between the three? Was it the knowledge that their future bosses at Comcast might be watching? Who knows. Either way, it was a grim joy to see the defeat of the Democrats played out on the faces of the unholy trinity. Revenge may be a dish best served cold but it's even better when it's being filmed.
That is old news now and not nearly as surprising nor newsworthy as I first thought it would be. The media is biased. That's been clear for years and I find it hard to add anything more to it. What I really wanted to write about was related to our present situation but on more of a historical tangent. Oh hell, why not just say it.
I miss Bill Clinton.
There, I said it. Moreover, I'm not ashamed of it either. I did vote for him twice after all. Some of you already know that I was once a Democrat although I held some moderately conservative beliefs. I was raised a Kennedy Democrat. John F., not Teddy. Most of my immediate family are still Democrats to this day. I try not to get into too many political discussions during family get-togethers but it's a well known fact I lean to the right. I grew up believing that Democrats were the party of the little guy and I thought that was an admirable thing. I never questioned those beliefs and apart from voting for Reagan in his second term, I voted Democrat regularly. Hell, I even voted for Michael Dukakis. That was more of a protest vote than anything else. The senior Bush was head of the CIA at one time and that just had a creepy feeling in my mind. I voted for Reagan for two reasons; first, I was in the army at the time and he was wagging his finger at the Russians nearly every day on TV and second, I liked having someone who was the Commander of the military who wasn't afraid to flex his military muscle when it was needed. I still like to say that at one time, many years ago, Ronald Reagan was my boss.
On to the real meat of this note though. I miss Bill Clinton. A lot. Despite his failings as a man he was one hell of a good leader for this country. He represented a new style that matched the attitude of the nation. We were quickly approaching the new millennium and he was well suited to the task of leading us into it. He was given an economy that was just beginning to roar back into life, job growth was good, people were making money and his ability to connect with the common man was uncanny. Who can forget, "I feel your pain."?
While his moral compass may have been stuck pointing south, to his crotch, his leadership was spot on. When he lost the house in '94 he realized quickly that things would have to change in order to govern effectively. He rose to the challenge and made quick work of forming new partnerships in the Congress. While he is still credited for signing welfare reform into law, it's hardly mentioned that it passed his desk 3 times before he actually signed it. It was a sweeping reform and wildly successful and it showed his willingness to reach across the proverbial aisle. He was a keen political animal, the likes of which we weren't quite used to. He was smart, likable and always on the lookout for his next moment of glory. He also represented a new era in politics. He was the first politician that we stopped putting on a pedestal. We recognized him as a man. Flawed and imperfect but with a good heart. He loved his country and it showed.
He took what appeared to be a crushing defeat and turned it into a chance to showcase his astounding adaptability and his expert political gamesmanship. His ability to triangulate became the stuff of legend. He was able to bring all sides to the table and forge an outcome that left most feeling like they won the day.
So why the wistful remembrance about a man I find so reprehensible today? Quite honestly I wish I saw the same traits in our current President. What I've seen so far from Obama is more of the same rhetoric that led him to the defeat he just suffered. His post election statements and his subsequent interview on 60 minutes were both filled with laments about how he didn't get his message out clearly enough. How he should have done a better job at convincing his opposition that his way was the best way. His arrogance will simply not let him believe that the American people might not agree with him. Bill Clinton wanted approval more than anything else. Maybe his childhood played a role in his need to be liked but whatever the case, it served him well in the aftermath of the 94 midterm. He played it beautifully, masterfully and with such ease you hardly noticed that he had just had his political head handed to him.
If Obama has any political instincts at all, he will learn an important lesson that Bill Clinton already knows. You either listen and learn or you become a weak footnote in history.
Can you say Jimmy Carter?
Friday, November 5, 2010
The Week In Review
My, oh my where do we begin? Let's start by saying that this is not like any other weekly review I've written up to this point. While I will try to hide my obvious jubilation over the election results, I will also attempt to relay some astounding facts that both surround and hide inside the aforementioned results. Those of you with a conservative lean are at a minimum pleased with the election I suspect but for me this was more than an election. This was a realignment of both the Republican and Democrat parties. This was the loudest shout the American people have uttered in more than a hundred years. It was a reaffirmation of the power of both the people and their most sacred duty...their vote. This election represents, in a much broader sense, the true might and majesty of what our country stands for. The peaceful exercise of the modern transfer of power.
Forgive me if I wax rhapsodic about the greatness of this country. No other country allows it's people such freedom, such an absolute role in it's future, it's persona and it's character. In a scant 160 years, we went from a country at war with itself for the determination of slavery, to electing a black man President. That alone, speaks volumes about the role this country plays in the world as a model for the real gift of Democracy. It is the individual, or a collection of them, that shape the face this nation shows the world.
Having said that, it is obvious that while the country may have the sense of enlightenment needed to elect a black man President, it is not above telling that same man that his choice of a course for the nation is wrong and must be altered. Despite the mainstream media belief that any criticism of a black man is veiled racism, it is impossible to believe that the results of our last election are only about race. They must be about the ideology of the party in power and the direction we must go moving forward. If the independents or moderates that essentially flung Obama into the White House to begin with abandoned him two years later, one can only surmise that they were, in actual point of fact, unhappy with who they thought he was. He ran as a centrist to attract that sacred middle that all politicians seek to woo during an election season but wound up taking a radical left turn after his inauguration. Two years of health care reform, bailouts, stimulus, rising unemployment and the incessant meddling in the business of America which is business after all, finally boiled over, leaving the Democrat party burned and disfigured beyond it's ability to comprehend.
With the help of the Tea Party, that sacred middle sent what amounted to a cacophony of disdain and displeasure throughout the entire Liberal establishment. Now, that's not what you'll hear from almost everyone on the left. There are so many records tucked inside this election and I suspect that if you don't watch Fox news, you'd never have heard about them. I will try to list just a few firsts or at least the record moments in this election:
Tim Scott won his race in South Carolina on the GOP ticket. What is the amazing fact here? Tim Scott is black and the fist black GOP member from South Carolina since reconstruction. Yes, you read that correctly.
Col. Allen West, whose YouTube videos of his inspirational speeches went viral, won his race in Florida. West is also black and the first black GOP member in Florida since the 1870's.
The state House in Alabama flipped to Republican control for the first time since 1865.
There were a total of 688 State level congressional seats won by Republicans out of a possible 1,000 up for election. That's fully 2/3 of ALL available seats.
The US House changed hands in a stunning upset to the tune of 66 seats. For perspective, the Republican Revolution of 1994 was a gain of only 54 seats, enough to wrest control of the House at the time. If that was a "revolution" what was this? A bloodless coup? A tsunami?
No Democrat running for a state level congressional seat, either House or Senate had been elected who wasn't an incumbent. Let that little tidbit sink in for a moment. Only those who were already entrenched could retain their seats. No New Democrats got elected. Just breathe slowly and savor the delicious aroma of the meaning of the word "mandate".
Now, did you hear those facts from any of the mainstream media outlets? Did Chris Mathews weep with joy at the election of a black man in Florida? Do you think he felt a thrill go up his leg? Do you think Keith Olbermann will pick one of the two previous Republicans I just mentioned as a role model for black Americans or will he name them his Worst Person?
Another truly astounding fact of this election is the newly developed ability of conservatives to mobilize and organize. Those two actions were relegated solely to the left for so many years that conservatives looked silly and weak in comparison. This election showed how strong the right can be when it is properly motivated. The assault on freedom represented by the gargantuan Health Care law and it's impending death knell for individual choice in decisions based on our lives seemed to be the proper motivation. The rise and subsequent denigration of the Tea Party by every sector of leftist ideology proved to be the final nail in the coffin for the left. Despite being called stupid, violent, extreme, racist and the ever popular "Tea Baggers", a thinly veiled insult and a graphic sexual term, the Tea Party managed what no other movement in the past had been able to do. It woke up a sleeping giant by metaphorically holding up the Constitution in one hand and the Health Care Law in the other. It asked the American people which document was more important? Which was really indicative of what the country stood for? Do we stand for freedom from oppressive Government or do we sit quietly while that same Government attempts to behead the dreams of our founding fathers? The answer seems clear to most people, unless you have a journalism degree from Columbia. Those people seem to think that stupidity and anger ruled the day.
Let's compare two recent elections and then ask a very important question. In 2008, the American people spoke loudly and Barack Obama was propelled to immortality. The left declared this a moment worthy of remembrance and praise for a country that still smacked sorely of racial divisions hundreds of years old. They declared it a mandate for a more moderate America that would heal itself and the world all at once. Obama won that election by a 52% - 47% margin over John McCain. While that does mean that he won a technical majority of the American People, it was hardly earth shattering in that he only won by 7 percentage points. Hardly what one could reasonably call a mandate by any any definition of the word. The only true historic part of that election was that a black man won. While that is an admirable goal, especially from a country with such an ugly past in matters of race, that remains the sole moment of regard worth noting.
In 2010, the number of Republican gains is staggering by comparison. The margin of victory in the US House is the largest since 1938. A 66 seat pickup is the stuff of political dreams in the modern era. It is, quite frankly, a political analyst's wet dream. When you couple that with gains in the US Senate, gubernatorial gains and the enormous gains in the State Houses across the country,what one word comes close to describing it?
Mandate. A conservative mandate of such Herculean proportions that surely even the President would be humbled by it's size.
If you were talking about any other President, I would agree but not our current President. He still seems convinced that he either didn't get his message out clearly enough or he was just so smart that none of us mere mortals could comprehend his brilliance. His "conciliatory" speech the day after the election smacked of self delusion and a verbal doubling down of more of the same policies that had just been rejected. He didn't see it as a rejection at all. He still seems to think he just needs to better explain why his Statist policies are such a good thing for the country. He doesn't understand that wasting nearly two tears trying to "reform" the best health care system in the world while the economy sank deeper and deeper into recession might give most of the country the impression that all he cared about was his agenda, not the millions of unemployed and the millions more being systematically hurt by the downward spiral. Had he expended half the energy in rescuing the economy that he spent destroying one-sixth of it, this election would have had much different consequences.
In a nutshell, his Keynesian economic beliefs and his burgeoning "ideologue" persona, his entrenched, unshakable belief that he knows best, eventually dragged him and the entire Democrat party into an abyss of mediocrity. It exposed the modern Democrat party as a big government party that holds faith in the State above faith in the people. It places it's ideals for humanity above the desires of it's people.
That, of course, is my opinion but I suspect that it's shared by at least 66 Republicans. Regardless of what you may have heard, there are jobs being created...for Republicans all across the country.
This post will end on that note but I still want to dissect the election from the media's reaction. There is so much information to be disseminated in this election that I find it a necessity to tackle the issues separately. This is both for you the reader, I don't wish to bore you but also for myself. I do have a tendency to ramble. You must believe me when I say that for all the information contained in this post about the election from the standpoint of results and reasons for it's outcome, what lies ahead in the media's perception of it is equally as astounding.
Forgive me if I wax rhapsodic about the greatness of this country. No other country allows it's people such freedom, such an absolute role in it's future, it's persona and it's character. In a scant 160 years, we went from a country at war with itself for the determination of slavery, to electing a black man President. That alone, speaks volumes about the role this country plays in the world as a model for the real gift of Democracy. It is the individual, or a collection of them, that shape the face this nation shows the world.
Having said that, it is obvious that while the country may have the sense of enlightenment needed to elect a black man President, it is not above telling that same man that his choice of a course for the nation is wrong and must be altered. Despite the mainstream media belief that any criticism of a black man is veiled racism, it is impossible to believe that the results of our last election are only about race. They must be about the ideology of the party in power and the direction we must go moving forward. If the independents or moderates that essentially flung Obama into the White House to begin with abandoned him two years later, one can only surmise that they were, in actual point of fact, unhappy with who they thought he was. He ran as a centrist to attract that sacred middle that all politicians seek to woo during an election season but wound up taking a radical left turn after his inauguration. Two years of health care reform, bailouts, stimulus, rising unemployment and the incessant meddling in the business of America which is business after all, finally boiled over, leaving the Democrat party burned and disfigured beyond it's ability to comprehend.
With the help of the Tea Party, that sacred middle sent what amounted to a cacophony of disdain and displeasure throughout the entire Liberal establishment. Now, that's not what you'll hear from almost everyone on the left. There are so many records tucked inside this election and I suspect that if you don't watch Fox news, you'd never have heard about them. I will try to list just a few firsts or at least the record moments in this election:
Tim Scott won his race in South Carolina on the GOP ticket. What is the amazing fact here? Tim Scott is black and the fist black GOP member from South Carolina since reconstruction. Yes, you read that correctly.
Col. Allen West, whose YouTube videos of his inspirational speeches went viral, won his race in Florida. West is also black and the first black GOP member in Florida since the 1870's.
The state House in Alabama flipped to Republican control for the first time since 1865.
There were a total of 688 State level congressional seats won by Republicans out of a possible 1,000 up for election. That's fully 2/3 of ALL available seats.
The US House changed hands in a stunning upset to the tune of 66 seats. For perspective, the Republican Revolution of 1994 was a gain of only 54 seats, enough to wrest control of the House at the time. If that was a "revolution" what was this? A bloodless coup? A tsunami?
No Democrat running for a state level congressional seat, either House or Senate had been elected who wasn't an incumbent. Let that little tidbit sink in for a moment. Only those who were already entrenched could retain their seats. No New Democrats got elected. Just breathe slowly and savor the delicious aroma of the meaning of the word "mandate".
Now, did you hear those facts from any of the mainstream media outlets? Did Chris Mathews weep with joy at the election of a black man in Florida? Do you think he felt a thrill go up his leg? Do you think Keith Olbermann will pick one of the two previous Republicans I just mentioned as a role model for black Americans or will he name them his Worst Person?
Another truly astounding fact of this election is the newly developed ability of conservatives to mobilize and organize. Those two actions were relegated solely to the left for so many years that conservatives looked silly and weak in comparison. This election showed how strong the right can be when it is properly motivated. The assault on freedom represented by the gargantuan Health Care law and it's impending death knell for individual choice in decisions based on our lives seemed to be the proper motivation. The rise and subsequent denigration of the Tea Party by every sector of leftist ideology proved to be the final nail in the coffin for the left. Despite being called stupid, violent, extreme, racist and the ever popular "Tea Baggers", a thinly veiled insult and a graphic sexual term, the Tea Party managed what no other movement in the past had been able to do. It woke up a sleeping giant by metaphorically holding up the Constitution in one hand and the Health Care Law in the other. It asked the American people which document was more important? Which was really indicative of what the country stood for? Do we stand for freedom from oppressive Government or do we sit quietly while that same Government attempts to behead the dreams of our founding fathers? The answer seems clear to most people, unless you have a journalism degree from Columbia. Those people seem to think that stupidity and anger ruled the day.
Let's compare two recent elections and then ask a very important question. In 2008, the American people spoke loudly and Barack Obama was propelled to immortality. The left declared this a moment worthy of remembrance and praise for a country that still smacked sorely of racial divisions hundreds of years old. They declared it a mandate for a more moderate America that would heal itself and the world all at once. Obama won that election by a 52% - 47% margin over John McCain. While that does mean that he won a technical majority of the American People, it was hardly earth shattering in that he only won by 7 percentage points. Hardly what one could reasonably call a mandate by any any definition of the word. The only true historic part of that election was that a black man won. While that is an admirable goal, especially from a country with such an ugly past in matters of race, that remains the sole moment of regard worth noting.
In 2010, the number of Republican gains is staggering by comparison. The margin of victory in the US House is the largest since 1938. A 66 seat pickup is the stuff of political dreams in the modern era. It is, quite frankly, a political analyst's wet dream. When you couple that with gains in the US Senate, gubernatorial gains and the enormous gains in the State Houses across the country,what one word comes close to describing it?
Mandate. A conservative mandate of such Herculean proportions that surely even the President would be humbled by it's size.
If you were talking about any other President, I would agree but not our current President. He still seems convinced that he either didn't get his message out clearly enough or he was just so smart that none of us mere mortals could comprehend his brilliance. His "conciliatory" speech the day after the election smacked of self delusion and a verbal doubling down of more of the same policies that had just been rejected. He didn't see it as a rejection at all. He still seems to think he just needs to better explain why his Statist policies are such a good thing for the country. He doesn't understand that wasting nearly two tears trying to "reform" the best health care system in the world while the economy sank deeper and deeper into recession might give most of the country the impression that all he cared about was his agenda, not the millions of unemployed and the millions more being systematically hurt by the downward spiral. Had he expended half the energy in rescuing the economy that he spent destroying one-sixth of it, this election would have had much different consequences.
In a nutshell, his Keynesian economic beliefs and his burgeoning "ideologue" persona, his entrenched, unshakable belief that he knows best, eventually dragged him and the entire Democrat party into an abyss of mediocrity. It exposed the modern Democrat party as a big government party that holds faith in the State above faith in the people. It places it's ideals for humanity above the desires of it's people.
That, of course, is my opinion but I suspect that it's shared by at least 66 Republicans. Regardless of what you may have heard, there are jobs being created...for Republicans all across the country.
This post will end on that note but I still want to dissect the election from the media's reaction. There is so much information to be disseminated in this election that I find it a necessity to tackle the issues separately. This is both for you the reader, I don't wish to bore you but also for myself. I do have a tendency to ramble. You must believe me when I say that for all the information contained in this post about the election from the standpoint of results and reasons for it's outcome, what lies ahead in the media's perception of it is equally as astounding.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The Guardians Of Hypocrisy
Rush Limbaugh says often that you can tell what liberals are up to by what they accuse you of. If they accuse you of being in the pocket of special interests, they're trying to deflect criticism of the use of Union donations. If they accuse you of taking advantage of campaign finance laws, they're really hoping all those baskets of cash from the Chinese aren't noticed. If they accuse you of low moral character in a public official, they're really trying to prop up a President who got a "Lewinsky" in the Oval Office.
More recently, they've been howling about the negative campaign ads that they see from the Republican party and the influence of money from Political Action Committees (PACS) who don't have to report where that money comes from. These claims are the kind that will make you shoot soda from your nose when you hear them if you know the real truth. The truth is this: totaling up the money spent by Democrats, left leaning PACS and the Unions, we come to 1.1 billion dollars. The amount from Republicans and right leaning PACS comes to 600 million dollars. That's just over half what's been spent from the left. The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife. A dull knife. A dull, rusty, 200 year old knife.
As far as negative campaign ads go, both sides have their fair share but from what I've seen, the left has far and away the most negative and incendiary ads to date. Alan Grayson (D) Florida, used an excerpted portion of a speech, given by his opponent Dan Webster (R) at a church, to give the impression that Webster thinks women should, "...submit to me", calling him Taliban Dan. You've no doubt heard the backlash of the "Aqua Buddha" ad from the Kentucky Senate race that wound up bringing Rand Paul up in the polls by nearly 7 points. And while not technically an ad, Joy Behar's comments on The View about Sharon Angle being a "bitch who was going to hell", it's still well within the framework of hypocrisy for the purposes of our discussion on the subject. Angle sent Behar flowers and a thank you card the next day. It seems donations flooded into Angle's campaign coffers after Behar's nasty remarks and the polls tilted in Angle's favor too. Kind of a reverse double whammy. Not a peep from the left about those ugly comments.
Another trend in the media and in the upper echelon of Democrat leadership is that the impending losses by the left are due to fear and scare tactics by right wing radio and Fox News. It can't be because the American people are tired of promises and committees and action plans by the current administration, it's because Americans are ill informed and not thinking clearly. Nearly everyone on the left, from the President on down, has tried to make the case that Americans simply don't know a good thing when they see it. When Obama was elected, the media applauded Americans for their intelligence and enlightened sensibilities. A scant 2 years later, Americans are stupid and running on racism and hatred.
To use one of Obama's favorite metaphors, American's are removing him from the driver's seat and telling him to let THEM drive. In Obama's world, he's in the driver's seat and everyone else is in the back. He has the country in a rear facing child seat so they can't see what's going on up ahead and only the Democrat leadership is allowed in the front.
To take this analogy to it's proper place would be to say that Obama should have stopped miles ago and asked for directions because he's gotten us hopelessly lost and we're dangerously low on gas.
More recently, they've been howling about the negative campaign ads that they see from the Republican party and the influence of money from Political Action Committees (PACS) who don't have to report where that money comes from. These claims are the kind that will make you shoot soda from your nose when you hear them if you know the real truth. The truth is this: totaling up the money spent by Democrats, left leaning PACS and the Unions, we come to 1.1 billion dollars. The amount from Republicans and right leaning PACS comes to 600 million dollars. That's just over half what's been spent from the left. The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife. A dull knife. A dull, rusty, 200 year old knife.
As far as negative campaign ads go, both sides have their fair share but from what I've seen, the left has far and away the most negative and incendiary ads to date. Alan Grayson (D) Florida, used an excerpted portion of a speech, given by his opponent Dan Webster (R) at a church, to give the impression that Webster thinks women should, "...submit to me", calling him Taliban Dan. You've no doubt heard the backlash of the "Aqua Buddha" ad from the Kentucky Senate race that wound up bringing Rand Paul up in the polls by nearly 7 points. And while not technically an ad, Joy Behar's comments on The View about Sharon Angle being a "bitch who was going to hell", it's still well within the framework of hypocrisy for the purposes of our discussion on the subject. Angle sent Behar flowers and a thank you card the next day. It seems donations flooded into Angle's campaign coffers after Behar's nasty remarks and the polls tilted in Angle's favor too. Kind of a reverse double whammy. Not a peep from the left about those ugly comments.
Another trend in the media and in the upper echelon of Democrat leadership is that the impending losses by the left are due to fear and scare tactics by right wing radio and Fox News. It can't be because the American people are tired of promises and committees and action plans by the current administration, it's because Americans are ill informed and not thinking clearly. Nearly everyone on the left, from the President on down, has tried to make the case that Americans simply don't know a good thing when they see it. When Obama was elected, the media applauded Americans for their intelligence and enlightened sensibilities. A scant 2 years later, Americans are stupid and running on racism and hatred.
To use one of Obama's favorite metaphors, American's are removing him from the driver's seat and telling him to let THEM drive. In Obama's world, he's in the driver's seat and everyone else is in the back. He has the country in a rear facing child seat so they can't see what's going on up ahead and only the Democrat leadership is allowed in the front.
To take this analogy to it's proper place would be to say that Obama should have stopped miles ago and asked for directions because he's gotten us hopelessly lost and we're dangerously low on gas.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
The Insanity Of Political Correctness
The Insanity Of Political Correctness
or
How Liberals Killed 13 and Wounded 32 At Fort Hood
(Opinion)
I am, at heart, a simple man with a knack for identifying a solution to a problem quickly. This is due in large part to my chosen profession as a field service technician. It's my job to discover a fault, a reason for that fault and the most logical solution to that fault. It's part of my nature really. It might be a character quirk that compels me to analyze a problem as quickly as possible but whatever the reason I tend to see things in black and white to make the diagnosis of a problem as easy a process as I can. I try to keep the process as uncluttered as possible to minimize potential incorrect conclusions. Since I deal with the public, it is incumbent upon me to get their equipment in working order in a timely fashion both for their satisfaction and to contribute to the company's reputation. Since I recently celebrated my 15th year in the business, I'd have to assume I'm fairly good at it by now.
Why am I talking about what I do for a living? To be honest, how I approach my job is very similar to how I approach life. If, for instance, I see a story on the news about an accidental shooting in a home, I don't immediately think about less guns. I think about better control of guns at home. Trigger locks, gun safes and the like spring to mind, not reducing the freedom of the individual.
Another example that will no doubt raise the ire of some and the acknowledgment of others is the aftermath of 9/11. When I learned that all 19 hijackers were Muslim men, I immediately saw the solution to the problem of future hijackings. Extra airport screenings, better background checks and a more stringent visa policy with stricter enforcement came to mind.
Trouble is, according to the loony left that makes me a bigot and a fear monger. They'd prefer extra screenings on old women and young children just to "make it fair". We musn't give the appearance of bigotry against Muslims. We must punish everyone for the actions of a radical few.
In other words, we must ignore the obvious for the sake of political correctness. Those of you who have read me before know how much I abhor political correctness. It's dishonest and serves no useful purpose other than to quell thought and speech. It's main goal is to make sure that everyone thinks the same thing. That everyone feels the same thing and says the same thing. I find it detestable and more than that, I find it dangerous. Why do liberals, in their infinite wisdom, screech to the heavens about diversity and then ask me to think like everyone else? Why do they ask me to celebrate the differences in our culture and then tell me to put my differences aside? Why must I leave behind what seems like common sense so a few overly sensitive whiners can feel good about themselves?
In a recent post I related the recent firing of Juan Williams by NPR for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor. I'll reprint the relevant parts here to provide better context for what I'm about to say.
"In the area of news, Juan Williams, political analyst for National Public Radio and part time Fox News contributor, was fired from his NPR post for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor concerning his trepidation about people "dressed in muslim garb" in airports saying, "they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
or
How Liberals Killed 13 and Wounded 32 At Fort Hood
(Opinion)
I am, at heart, a simple man with a knack for identifying a solution to a problem quickly. This is due in large part to my chosen profession as a field service technician. It's my job to discover a fault, a reason for that fault and the most logical solution to that fault. It's part of my nature really. It might be a character quirk that compels me to analyze a problem as quickly as possible but whatever the reason I tend to see things in black and white to make the diagnosis of a problem as easy a process as I can. I try to keep the process as uncluttered as possible to minimize potential incorrect conclusions. Since I deal with the public, it is incumbent upon me to get their equipment in working order in a timely fashion both for their satisfaction and to contribute to the company's reputation. Since I recently celebrated my 15th year in the business, I'd have to assume I'm fairly good at it by now.
Why am I talking about what I do for a living? To be honest, how I approach my job is very similar to how I approach life. If, for instance, I see a story on the news about an accidental shooting in a home, I don't immediately think about less guns. I think about better control of guns at home. Trigger locks, gun safes and the like spring to mind, not reducing the freedom of the individual.
Another example that will no doubt raise the ire of some and the acknowledgment of others is the aftermath of 9/11. When I learned that all 19 hijackers were Muslim men, I immediately saw the solution to the problem of future hijackings. Extra airport screenings, better background checks and a more stringent visa policy with stricter enforcement came to mind.
Trouble is, according to the loony left that makes me a bigot and a fear monger. They'd prefer extra screenings on old women and young children just to "make it fair". We musn't give the appearance of bigotry against Muslims. We must punish everyone for the actions of a radical few.
In other words, we must ignore the obvious for the sake of political correctness. Those of you who have read me before know how much I abhor political correctness. It's dishonest and serves no useful purpose other than to quell thought and speech. It's main goal is to make sure that everyone thinks the same thing. That everyone feels the same thing and says the same thing. I find it detestable and more than that, I find it dangerous. Why do liberals, in their infinite wisdom, screech to the heavens about diversity and then ask me to think like everyone else? Why do they ask me to celebrate the differences in our culture and then tell me to put my differences aside? Why must I leave behind what seems like common sense so a few overly sensitive whiners can feel good about themselves?
In a recent post I related the recent firing of Juan Williams by NPR for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor. I'll reprint the relevant parts here to provide better context for what I'm about to say.
"In the area of news, Juan Williams, political analyst for National Public Radio and part time Fox News contributor, was fired from his NPR post for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor concerning his trepidation about people "dressed in muslim garb" in airports saying, "they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
For those remarks he was summarily dismissed via phone call by his immediate superior. He was told the decision was final and that it had come from above her. The person above her is Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR. Schiller later made the comment that Juan's remarks were inconsistent with NPR's journalistic standards and that he should discuss his comments with "his psychiatrist or publicist" hinting that Williams must have been mentally disturbed to say what he did or seeking a juicy sound bite that might garner him some attention in the press. Suffice to say the bulk of the attention has been focused on the ham handed firing and the not so subtle hypocrisy of Schiller's statement about NPR's journalistic standards.
The only standards NPR is currently ascribing to have more to do with political correctness and the obvious notion that Williams had gone off the reservation of liberal group think and must be tamped down. NPR's Nina Totenberg once said of Jesse Helms,
"I think he ought to be worried about the -- about what's going on in the good Lord's mind because if there's retributive justice he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it."
That statement, apparently, is perfectly in line with NPR's high journalistic standards."
As you can imagine, within a few days the entire liberal community was up in arms about his comments. They decried his statement as insensitive, bigoted and ignorant. Now I suppose I could agree with them if I suspended my belief in free speech and free expression. In our modern culture however, free speech isn't exactly free. It's only free when liberals agree with you. When they don't agree, it's hateful and bigoted and anyone caught saying bad things must be punished.
While I could go on for hours about the injustice and overall stupidity of political correctness, it really is peripheral to I'm about to say. What I have to say is far more critical and far more dangerous.
What I'm really trying to say is that liberals are responsible for the massacre at Fort Hood where 13 soldiers were killed and 32 were injured. Personally, I could leave it there and feel quite content that my message has been properly conveyed. Liberals killed 13 and wounded 32. The solution to the problem is no more difficult than that. There's very little gray area in finding the answer. Political correctness allowed a Muslim extremist with the goal of murdering Americans to remain within arms reach of the unsuspecting public. Liberals promote and insist on political correctness. Simple.
A+B=C. You don't have to be Einstein to get that one right the first time.
Nidal Hassan had made comments prior to the shooting that not only hinted but broadcast his intent to kill Americans. The radical Imam he corresponded with was already a suspect on the terror watch list. The government had this information in advance. His superiors failed to do what was necessary for fear of being branded bigots and intolerant of his religious beliefs. That fear stemmed from the pervasive and destructive effects of political correctness. He was allowed to remain at his post with no recrimination for his radical views. Political correctness kills people. End of story.
Is that extreme or extremely honest? Liberals shriek about not singling out Muslims in our society because that infringes on their religious freedom. It seems the only time most liberals give a damn about religious freedom is where Muslims are concerned. Taking the extra time to single out Muslims in airports is profiling and profiling is wrong. Even if it means that some innocent citizens might die as a result. A few dead Americans are a small price to pay on the altar of political correctness.
The government asks us to be vigilant and aware of our surroundings to help them prevent another terrorist attack. What, pray tell, am I supposed to be vigilant for? Gangs of old ladies with C-4 in their knitting bags? A gaggle of children with anthrax in their sippee cups? No, they want me to be vigilant for Muslim extremists who might wish to inflict mass damage on the general public. They just don't say it. They dance around it and make nice for the liberals who might possibly be offended. The latest batch of terror alerts in Europe aren't about motorcycle gangs or lunatic Green Peace malcontents. Those alerts are about Muslim extremists who wish to kill Americans.
It's war. It's an ugly prospect but turning away and pretending it's not true will only leave us vulnerable to a repeat of 9/11. As George W. Bush once said. "The government has to be perfect every time to avoid another terrorist attack. The terrorists only have to be perfect once to pull it off."
I'll use this analogy and maybe it'll convert someone who can't quite grasp why Americans are afraid of Muslims.
Let's say that people dressed in clown suits are robbing banks and killing people. They look like every other clown you've ever seen so you can't tell the good clowns from the bad ones. If you're standing in a bank and a clown walks in, do you get nervous? Do you watch his every move, prepared to snap into action should the need arise? If you said yes, you're a normal human who deals with fear and reality in a healthy and rational way. If you said no, you're a liar...and most likely, a liberal.
Now, the next time you hear someone practicing political correctness don't just shake your head and walk away. Tell them how dangerous it is. Tell them how it killed 13 soldiers. Tell them how easy it is to forget what happened to 3,000 innocent people whose only crime was going to work.
Friday, October 22, 2010
The week in review.
It's been awhile since I've done one of these so bear with me. To say that this has been a tumultuous week in politics and news would be putting it mildly to say the least.
In politics, Harry Reid said in an interview on The Ed Show on MSNBC that, "...but for me we'd be in a worldwide depression." Tall words from a small man in the fight of his life for reelection to the Senate. I find the irony somewhat sweet that the second most powerful Democrat in the country makes a wild claim about saving the world from megalithic disaster while the most powerful Democrat in the country would like to think that honor belongs to him. As usual, no outrage from the media about Reid's claim. They're too busy trying to find something new and potentially more outrageous about Christine O'Donnell. In fact, Ed Schultz never even batted an eye when Reid made that statement.
Elsewhere in politics, there's an ugly voting scandal brewing in Troy, New York. Dozens of fraudulent absentee ballots, cast for the Working Families Party, were discovered to contain forged signatures and false information. Brendan J. Lyons, senior writer for the Times Union of Albany writes,
"Documents at the county Board of Elections show the fraudulent ballots were handled by or prepared on behalf of various elected officials and leaders and operatives for the Democratic and Working Families parties. A Troy housing authority employee, Anthony Defiglio, who sources said oversees vacant properties for the Troy Housing Authority, also handled many of the fraudulent ballots, according to public records and interviews with voters who said they were duped. "
Now, before you go thinking the system is rigged on all sides, the county board of elections is run by, say it with me, Democrats. It would appear those responsible were dimwitted enough to lick the envelopes they used to send in the fake ballots. DNA testing is currently underway on the ballots and DNA samples have been collected from both the board of elections and the Troy city council. It's kind of a cross between the movie "Primary Colors" and the TRU TV show, Forensic Files. The outcome will be interesting at best.
Another interesting tidbit to be exposed this week was the list of the largest contributors in this years election cycle. And the largest is... drum roll please. The unions.
Wait. What? I thought the chamber of commerce was the largest. What with all that foreign money they have. Nope, it seems the Chamber didn't even make the top 5. The Baltimore Sun reports, "The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending.
The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending. "
In common parlance, that means corporations as a person... bad, unions as a person good. I know the obvious argument from the left is that donations from corporations may contain tainted money from dark, mysterious forces that might not have our best interests at heart. On the other hand, union money comes from the salaries derived from taxpayers and in turn confiscated by the unions in the form of union dues. In simpler terms, even those of us outside the union are giving money to political candidates with which we have nothing in common. As Alanis Morrisette would say, "Isn't it ironic?"
Is it any wonder that the only sector to have shown explosive growth of jobs in this flailing economy has been the public sector? Watching President Obama grow the size of government so rapidly over the last 22 months, it almost seemed like he didn't have a clue what he was doing. It all begins to make sense now.
In the area of news, Juan Williams, political analyst for National Public Radio and part time Fox News contributor, was fired from his NPR post for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor concerning his trepidation about people "dressed in muslim garb" in airports saying, "they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
For those remarks he was summarily dismissed via phone call by his immediate superior. He was told the decision was final and that it had come from above her. The person above her is Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR. Schiller later made the comment that Juan's remarks were inconsistent with NPR's journalistic standards and that he should discuss his comments with "his psychiatrist or publicist" hinting that Williams must have been mentally disturbed to say what he did or seeking a juicy sound bite that might garner him some attention in the press. Suffice to say the bulk of the attention has been focused on the ham handed firing and the not so subtle hypocrisy of Schiller's statement about NPR's journalistic standards.
The only standards NPR is currently ascribing to have more to do with political correctness and the obvious notion that Williams had gone off the reservation of liberal group think and must be tamped down. NPR's Nina Totenberg once said of Jesse Helms,
"I think he ought to be worried about the -- about what's going on in the good Lord's mind because if there's retributive justice he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it."
That statement, apparently, is perfectly in line with NPR's high journalistic standards. I will expand on this story and add a bit more of my own opinion at a later time. On a happier note, Fox News has offered Williams a contract and an expanded role on the network offering the other side of the ideological spectrum. It seems only fitting for a network who's tag line is "Fair & Balanced". That's more balance than you'll see on MSNBC at least. Remember Ed Schultz?
On a related note, George Soros has donated 1.8 million dollars to NPR to expand their reporting of local politics. Who thinks that money will be used for honest, fair reporting? Soros has after all, collapsed 4 economies in his lifetime and has been the largest single contributor to Democrat/liberal candidates since record keeping began. I wouldn't hold my breath hoping for anything that resembles true journalism coming out of NPR from this point forward.
Well, a little over a week to go until the midterms and it's getting tense out there in the heartland. Rhetoric is currently being ratcheted up, campaign cash on both sides is being flung around like candy from pinata and the climate is one of exuberance on the right and guarded. if irrational, confidence on the left. I must say though through it all, that this is perhaps the most contentious and important midterm election that I can recall. I can't wait until November 2nd. I'm planning on staying up all night to watch the returns in California. I've even made my own little congressional scorecard so I can keep up with how wide a margin the Republicans win by. For a political geek like myself, this is the NFC Championship game and the winner determines who goes to the big dance in 2012.
Let the games begin!
In politics, Harry Reid said in an interview on The Ed Show on MSNBC that, "...but for me we'd be in a worldwide depression." Tall words from a small man in the fight of his life for reelection to the Senate. I find the irony somewhat sweet that the second most powerful Democrat in the country makes a wild claim about saving the world from megalithic disaster while the most powerful Democrat in the country would like to think that honor belongs to him. As usual, no outrage from the media about Reid's claim. They're too busy trying to find something new and potentially more outrageous about Christine O'Donnell. In fact, Ed Schultz never even batted an eye when Reid made that statement.
Elsewhere in politics, there's an ugly voting scandal brewing in Troy, New York. Dozens of fraudulent absentee ballots, cast for the Working Families Party, were discovered to contain forged signatures and false information. Brendan J. Lyons, senior writer for the Times Union of Albany writes,
"Documents at the county Board of Elections show the fraudulent ballots were handled by or prepared on behalf of various elected officials and leaders and operatives for the Democratic and Working Families parties. A Troy housing authority employee, Anthony Defiglio, who sources said oversees vacant properties for the Troy Housing Authority, also handled many of the fraudulent ballots, according to public records and interviews with voters who said they were duped. "
Now, before you go thinking the system is rigged on all sides, the county board of elections is run by, say it with me, Democrats. It would appear those responsible were dimwitted enough to lick the envelopes they used to send in the fake ballots. DNA testing is currently underway on the ballots and DNA samples have been collected from both the board of elections and the Troy city council. It's kind of a cross between the movie "Primary Colors" and the TRU TV show, Forensic Files. The outcome will be interesting at best.
Another interesting tidbit to be exposed this week was the list of the largest contributors in this years election cycle. And the largest is... drum roll please. The unions.
Wait. What? I thought the chamber of commerce was the largest. What with all that foreign money they have. Nope, it seems the Chamber didn't even make the top 5. The Baltimore Sun reports, "The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending.
The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending. "
In common parlance, that means corporations as a person... bad, unions as a person good. I know the obvious argument from the left is that donations from corporations may contain tainted money from dark, mysterious forces that might not have our best interests at heart. On the other hand, union money comes from the salaries derived from taxpayers and in turn confiscated by the unions in the form of union dues. In simpler terms, even those of us outside the union are giving money to political candidates with which we have nothing in common. As Alanis Morrisette would say, "Isn't it ironic?"
Is it any wonder that the only sector to have shown explosive growth of jobs in this flailing economy has been the public sector? Watching President Obama grow the size of government so rapidly over the last 22 months, it almost seemed like he didn't have a clue what he was doing. It all begins to make sense now.
In the area of news, Juan Williams, political analyst for National Public Radio and part time Fox News contributor, was fired from his NPR post for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor concerning his trepidation about people "dressed in muslim garb" in airports saying, "they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
For those remarks he was summarily dismissed via phone call by his immediate superior. He was told the decision was final and that it had come from above her. The person above her is Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR. Schiller later made the comment that Juan's remarks were inconsistent with NPR's journalistic standards and that he should discuss his comments with "his psychiatrist or publicist" hinting that Williams must have been mentally disturbed to say what he did or seeking a juicy sound bite that might garner him some attention in the press. Suffice to say the bulk of the attention has been focused on the ham handed firing and the not so subtle hypocrisy of Schiller's statement about NPR's journalistic standards.
The only standards NPR is currently ascribing to have more to do with political correctness and the obvious notion that Williams had gone off the reservation of liberal group think and must be tamped down. NPR's Nina Totenberg once said of Jesse Helms,
"I think he ought to be worried about the -- about what's going on in the good Lord's mind because if there's retributive justice he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it."
That statement, apparently, is perfectly in line with NPR's high journalistic standards. I will expand on this story and add a bit more of my own opinion at a later time. On a happier note, Fox News has offered Williams a contract and an expanded role on the network offering the other side of the ideological spectrum. It seems only fitting for a network who's tag line is "Fair & Balanced". That's more balance than you'll see on MSNBC at least. Remember Ed Schultz?
On a related note, George Soros has donated 1.8 million dollars to NPR to expand their reporting of local politics. Who thinks that money will be used for honest, fair reporting? Soros has after all, collapsed 4 economies in his lifetime and has been the largest single contributor to Democrat/liberal candidates since record keeping began. I wouldn't hold my breath hoping for anything that resembles true journalism coming out of NPR from this point forward.
Well, a little over a week to go until the midterms and it's getting tense out there in the heartland. Rhetoric is currently being ratcheted up, campaign cash on both sides is being flung around like candy from pinata and the climate is one of exuberance on the right and guarded. if irrational, confidence on the left. I must say though through it all, that this is perhaps the most contentious and important midterm election that I can recall. I can't wait until November 2nd. I'm planning on staying up all night to watch the returns in California. I've even made my own little congressional scorecard so I can keep up with how wide a margin the Republicans win by. For a political geek like myself, this is the NFC Championship game and the winner determines who goes to the big dance in 2012.
Let the games begin!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Nudging our way to Utopia
This missive has been months in the planning stages. I sought to coalesce my thoughts before I put them into a tangible format but that proved pointless as the subject and it's ultimate goals were ever changing and shifting. When the health care law was still an idea, I read about a man who would eventually have incredible control over it and every other government program, regulation and law that is currently in play in the country. I was simply doing my own independent research about the people who were shaping the legislation as it made it's way through congress. I wanted to know who those people were and if they might have a personal agenda that would come into play. I read about Dr. Ezekiel Immanuel (special advisor to the President), John Holdren (science Czar), Kathleen Sibelius (Dept. HHS) and one other person who would play a pivotal role in the health care bill's application and enforcement. His name was unknown to me but he is a brilliant academic and a prolific author. Of all the people involved in the process of writing and shaping the bill, he seemed to be more of a dark figure in the background than a prominent player.
Cass Sunstein is a legal scholar and the current head of the Office of Information and Regulatory affairs (OIRA). This position puts him in place to make decisions on budgetary items regarding the cost of a government run health care plan. Let's leave aside his radical views on animal rights, he actually believes that animals have a right to sue for grievances, and delve deeper into his thoughts on how government plays a role in our lives. He has written in the past his belief in the celebration of tax day this way,
"In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?... Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency."
This line of thinking presupposes that every thing we have is the result of a generous gift from government. The money in our pockets, the cars we drive and the very lives we lead are all extensions of the government. Now, I may not be a thinker at any level near Mr. Sunstein's but the idea that I owe my very existence to the government scares me more than just a little. This is just a taste of the philosophy he believes and we've barely scratched the surface so far. Let's hear Mr. Sunstein in his own words on the subject of "life years", a controversial idea in which he proposes that some humans are inherently more valuable simply because of their age,
"I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people."
Gone will be the days when we honor the elderly in our society for their past contributions if Mr. Sunstein has his way. All that matters to him are future contributions. I wonder if he could be so callous, so unfeeling if it were his own mother or father suffering needlessly because a government bureaucrat decided that a life extending treatment has been deemed "not in the best interest of the collective". One other vital bit of information about Professor Sunstein is his admiration for noted philosopher, Peter Singer, a bio-ethicist. Singer, a far left-wing animal rights activist, has said that a border collie has more intrinsic value to the collective than does a child with developmental disabilities.
It's the "final solution" without the ugly connotation of fascism.
Of all the appointees to have taken residence in our current President's cabinet, this man is without a doubt the most powerful. His very job is to tweak regulations so as to more effectively control costs our ultimate outcomes of an associated program. The very real problem of his appointment is the ideological baggage he carries into the office. A man who believes that animals have rights might "tweak" regulations for hunters that would eventually make hunting a thing of the past. Now, before you call me an alarmist or even worse - paranoid, listen first to more background on this man.
Of all the books written by Sunstein, the one I find has the darkest undertones is a book written with economist Richard Thaler called "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness"
I'll give you a peek into the ideas behind the book by using Sunstein's own words,
"People often make poor choices – and look back at them with bafflement! We do this because as human beings, we all are susceptible to a wide array of routine biases that can lead to an equally wide array of embarrassing blunders in education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, happiness, and even the planet itself."
The upshot of the book is that we can be nudged into making the right choices in life if the right people are in charge of "altering the choice structure" to prevent us from making mistakes. What does Sunstein mean by "altering the choice structure"? I'll give you a few examples that should make it all clear. Recently, a war on trans-fat has been fought by the FDA against restaurants that have menus that offer, shall we say, less than healthy foods. The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, said in recent months that he would like to see salt removed from prepared foods in restaurants and would even like to see salt shakers removed from their tables. This is the basic idea behind altering the choice structure. If we remove the salt, no one will have high blood pressure, right? Wrong. We are still able to purchase salt at our local grocery store and season to our overworked heart's content. How long until that choice is removed?
Still another example of having choices removed is in the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program offered by the government. On the surface the program is a good one offering financial assistance to low income families with pregnant women and young children. It promotes healthy eating by only allowing participants to purchase certain foods like fresh fruits, vegetables and juices that contain mostly fruit and little additives. I happen to think the program is an admirable one and when used properly does provide healthy alternatives to the usual fast food and junk food that children are often given as a substitute for a healthy meal. Days ago however, the program's administrator removed potatoes as an acceptable vegetable. Why, you might ask, would the noble and life sustaining potato be cut from the list and made to hang out behind the gym with the "bad" foods? It seems potatoes can be fried. They can also be covered in sour cream and butter and doused with unhealthy levels of salt. Imagine for a moment a world without potatoes. No mashed, baked or golden fried heaven ever again.
That's Sunstein's dream of the nudge. Altering the choice structure in such a way that we end up as bland automatons devoid of the ability to think for ourselves. Unable to discern what we need from what we want. Ask yourself how long Sunstein would allow us to eat meat when he holds the view that animals have rights? How long before an entire industry disappears in a puff of well meaning smoke?
Could a man who holds such radical views about animal rights and the benevolence of the government truly not allow his own personal agenda to influence how he does his job? Can he be trusted to do what is best for safeguarding the freedoms of the American people or will he instead use his position to "nudge" the country to the perfection he believes is attainable.
Stay tuned for part two of Cass Sunstein when we explore his views on the first amendment and freedom in general.
Cass Sunstein is a legal scholar and the current head of the Office of Information and Regulatory affairs (OIRA). This position puts him in place to make decisions on budgetary items regarding the cost of a government run health care plan. Let's leave aside his radical views on animal rights, he actually believes that animals have a right to sue for grievances, and delve deeper into his thoughts on how government plays a role in our lives. He has written in the past his belief in the celebration of tax day this way,
"In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?... Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency."
This line of thinking presupposes that every thing we have is the result of a generous gift from government. The money in our pockets, the cars we drive and the very lives we lead are all extensions of the government. Now, I may not be a thinker at any level near Mr. Sunstein's but the idea that I owe my very existence to the government scares me more than just a little. This is just a taste of the philosophy he believes and we've barely scratched the surface so far. Let's hear Mr. Sunstein in his own words on the subject of "life years", a controversial idea in which he proposes that some humans are inherently more valuable simply because of their age,
"I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people."
Gone will be the days when we honor the elderly in our society for their past contributions if Mr. Sunstein has his way. All that matters to him are future contributions. I wonder if he could be so callous, so unfeeling if it were his own mother or father suffering needlessly because a government bureaucrat decided that a life extending treatment has been deemed "not in the best interest of the collective". One other vital bit of information about Professor Sunstein is his admiration for noted philosopher, Peter Singer, a bio-ethicist. Singer, a far left-wing animal rights activist, has said that a border collie has more intrinsic value to the collective than does a child with developmental disabilities.
It's the "final solution" without the ugly connotation of fascism.
Of all the appointees to have taken residence in our current President's cabinet, this man is without a doubt the most powerful. His very job is to tweak regulations so as to more effectively control costs our ultimate outcomes of an associated program. The very real problem of his appointment is the ideological baggage he carries into the office. A man who believes that animals have rights might "tweak" regulations for hunters that would eventually make hunting a thing of the past. Now, before you call me an alarmist or even worse - paranoid, listen first to more background on this man.
Of all the books written by Sunstein, the one I find has the darkest undertones is a book written with economist Richard Thaler called "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness"
I'll give you a peek into the ideas behind the book by using Sunstein's own words,
"People often make poor choices – and look back at them with bafflement! We do this because as human beings, we all are susceptible to a wide array of routine biases that can lead to an equally wide array of embarrassing blunders in education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, happiness, and even the planet itself."
The upshot of the book is that we can be nudged into making the right choices in life if the right people are in charge of "altering the choice structure" to prevent us from making mistakes. What does Sunstein mean by "altering the choice structure"? I'll give you a few examples that should make it all clear. Recently, a war on trans-fat has been fought by the FDA against restaurants that have menus that offer, shall we say, less than healthy foods. The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, said in recent months that he would like to see salt removed from prepared foods in restaurants and would even like to see salt shakers removed from their tables. This is the basic idea behind altering the choice structure. If we remove the salt, no one will have high blood pressure, right? Wrong. We are still able to purchase salt at our local grocery store and season to our overworked heart's content. How long until that choice is removed?
Still another example of having choices removed is in the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program offered by the government. On the surface the program is a good one offering financial assistance to low income families with pregnant women and young children. It promotes healthy eating by only allowing participants to purchase certain foods like fresh fruits, vegetables and juices that contain mostly fruit and little additives. I happen to think the program is an admirable one and when used properly does provide healthy alternatives to the usual fast food and junk food that children are often given as a substitute for a healthy meal. Days ago however, the program's administrator removed potatoes as an acceptable vegetable. Why, you might ask, would the noble and life sustaining potato be cut from the list and made to hang out behind the gym with the "bad" foods? It seems potatoes can be fried. They can also be covered in sour cream and butter and doused with unhealthy levels of salt. Imagine for a moment a world without potatoes. No mashed, baked or golden fried heaven ever again.
That's Sunstein's dream of the nudge. Altering the choice structure in such a way that we end up as bland automatons devoid of the ability to think for ourselves. Unable to discern what we need from what we want. Ask yourself how long Sunstein would allow us to eat meat when he holds the view that animals have rights? How long before an entire industry disappears in a puff of well meaning smoke?
Could a man who holds such radical views about animal rights and the benevolence of the government truly not allow his own personal agenda to influence how he does his job? Can he be trusted to do what is best for safeguarding the freedoms of the American people or will he instead use his position to "nudge" the country to the perfection he believes is attainable.
Stay tuned for part two of Cass Sunstein when we explore his views on the first amendment and freedom in general.
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