Post-Election Navel Gazing

 I Pandora  No Responses »
Nov 082012
 
Voted! via gfscookie

Voted! via gfscookie

First, I do not believe either the candidate (Romney) or his Veep pick (Ryan) are the issue. Around mid-August we heard that his sons had told the political operatives running his campaign to stop trying to hide their father, and the revealed Romney was a sight to see. It was at that point that people began getting excited. Unfortunately, by that point it was also probably too late.

For the campaign itself, more of the blame lies with the man-handlers of the Republican party leadership who have these archaic and too-careful views of what does and does not sell here in America. The Republican party leadership needs to be up-ended, shaken out, and taken in fresh. I don’t necessarily mean taken in Conservative. I mean fresh, new, people who are honest and real, whatever they believe. The breadth of viewpoints is important, as it guarantees a wide range of ideas and solutions and a generally higher level of brilliance than the tired and decrepit losers we have now.

Romney himself did admirably against heavy odds. He remained a gentleman and a man of honor who obviously loved his wife, was obviously capable of the job he sought, and held himself above the fray in a way that was inspiring and Presidential without being haughty or snooty. Ryan was an inspired pick that I couldn’t have hoped for. He didn’t have the political finesse of the seasoned Biden, but he generally remembered what city he was in, and didn’t have a knack for saying the most inappropriate thing at the most inopportune moment. And he was a capable individual to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Second, there are two obvious trains of thought coming out of this election for Conservatives. The “it’s all over, the country has shifted, and we have to get used to being the opposition party that is shafted and ignored for the rest of our lives”, and the “hey, it’s just an election, yea this one sucked particularly badly, but there’s always tomorrow and we just have a bigger job than we thought we did yesterday”.

I tend to subscribe to the latter argument rather than the former, but I recognize some of the serious implications of those who are making the former. The people of America chose the path of Greece, of the PIGS of Europe, of endless debt, with the bigger issue that there are few who are willing or even capable of bailing us out. And that’s not all. From a friend of mine:

Four years ago, if I was the type of person who believed birth control was wrong, I could simply not use it. Now I am legally obligated to pay for other people to do so.

Four years ago, it was perfectly acceptable to for me to refuse to provide my professional services in support of an event with which I disagreed. Now, doing so might get me sued.

Four years ago, the government was not in the business of engaging in character assassination of private citizens. Now the full weight of the Presidential bully pulpit has been leveraged to attack Rush Limbaugh, Charles and David Koch, Sheldon Adelson, and others by name. Meanwhile, the Senate majority leader, in violation of Senate rules, took to the floor of the chamber and gave what was essentially a campaign speech, accusing the other party’s candidate of committing felony tax fraud without a shred of evidence. The nation, collectively, shrugged.

Four years ago, I lived in a country which had just overwhelmingly elected a black man to the White House for the first time and was joyously celebrating another step closer to Martin Luther King Jr’s dream that we might all one day be judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character. This morning I woke up in a country where the hashtag #fuckwhitepeople was trending on Twitter.

There’s more where that came from. Go read the whole thing. It’s sobering and lays out very clearly some of the more momentous changes we’ve just seen.

But I also don’t give up hope. I’m an optimist. Sue me.

A comment left by a self-identified Canadian offers some hope:

Can I offer you folks some perspective from a Canadian viewpoint?

Up here in Canuckistan we had virtually unrivaled Liberal rule for decades, and conservatives could see no hope of any end to it. The public, we feared, would always vote for more free goodies and handouts. Yet today we have a Conservative government, while the all-powerful Liberals have been reduced to a pitiful rump.

As Mark Steyn says, Progressives are fond of telling you that the “tide has turned”, but they never take into account that the tide that comes in goes out again. Food for thought.

In other words, life goes on. We lost big. There are many good reasons we lost. It does us good to consider them thoughtfully, and then, rather than dwelling on them, dwell instead on what it’ll take to fix them, prevent them.

In the run-up to the election, as we conservatives gained excitement over what we thought were good numbers pointing to a probable win, we talked a lot on Facebook and Twitter. But we mostly engaged with other conservatives, people of like mind. It was as much an echo chamber in the depths of conservatism as it is in the hallowed halls of academia, the media, and extreme leftists. Did we go out and engage with our friends, as they say it, IRL? Did we communicate with the young people the enormity of the fiscal mess? Did we counter the claims made by the despicable Villagairosa that Republicans want to end the Voting Rights Act (which we passed in the first place over the screams of the racist Democrats and their KKK supporters)? Did we show just how stupid the idea that conservatives want to role back rights of anybody is?

Which brings up a final point. Even though we have hope, we also have work. We have been successfully demonized. Significant numbers of women have been convinced that Republicans are not only against government paying for their contraceptives, but that we are also against them voting. Significant numbers of black Americans now think Republicans do not want them participating in civic duties and the rights of the citizenry. These are lies, and you and I know they are. But there are mouthbreathers in the media who have made these claims (I’m look at you “Tingles” Matthews) and hacks in politics (I’m looking at you “Ignore my city’s issues” Villagairosa) who make these claims without anybody standing up and calling them on the horrible things they are saying.

We need to stand up and actively counter these and other lies about us. Too many liberals and leftists think we are a tiny minority, and perhaps we are, but allowing them to go their whole lives without meeting a competent, friendly, happy conservative who knows what they believes, is reasonable and rational, just makes our task harder. Talk politics at work, but in a way that is constructive, with lots of give and take. If you have to start by letting them do most of the talking, the long game makes that worthwhile.

Ask leading questions on your social feed. Don’t necessarily come out with a party-line answer, but try and lead people around thinking about issues in a conservative fashion.

We know conservative values are popular. The huge success of the Lord of the Rings and Batman franchises, just to name two, indicate that it is an intense attractive philosophy.

We just have to show it work in the real world too. And then we need to live our lives as embodiments of conservative principles, and show by our success and happiness and fulfillment, the joy of our lives, that we, truly, have the better way of life.

Also, read Andrew Klavan’s take on what we have to do now.

Related articles

The Democrat War On Women

 I Pandora  No Responses »
Oct 272012
 
Ann Romney

Ann Romney (Photo credit: katherinecresto)

As is evident this election cycle, Democrats have several operational assumptions regarding women which are offensive, degrading, and create victims of women, rather than empowering them.

Exhibit A: Lena Dunham’s ad for the Obama campaign. The idea that voting for Barack Obama, sexual maturity, and identification as a “real woman” are somehow correlated.

The problem with making everything all about sex is that you don’t know when to stop. (From BreakPoint)

Exhibit B: The idea that women can only be militant extremist feminists and have their possible acceptable lifestyle choices limited in order to be true women.

It was nothing if not audacious. Second wave feminists passed withering judgments on any woman who dared to live her life as she saw fit. They despised and shunned women who refused to sacrifice their lives to the feminist cause.

This one is particularly vicious and has been going on a lot longer than just since The One was crowned. It’s odd that the Philanderer in Chief and Sandra Fluke’s Sugar Daddy are the lefts ideal men. They aren’t even enablers, these two are victimizers of woman, taking what they can to ensure their own satisfaction, be it political or otherwise.

Yes, a little bit of my outrage over this particular point is that I see my own mother’s life choices and those of my wife questioned in the same questioning of Ann Romney and other women who choose of their own free will to live at home and devote their entire lives to making a home and raising children. It is not the only great and noble endeavor a woman may have, but it is certainly one they may choose.

Isn’t the crux of true feminism “be all you desire”? Isn’t that what we want for our daughters and mothers and wives and sisters? The ideology that says that a woman may be anything she chooses except X is an ideology that seeks to limit women, not empower them. When a woman is forbidden to choose a particular course of life simply because it isn’t approved by the current guardians of our culture, that woman is made a victim. Despite what some people want to think, nobody on the right side of the aisle wants to prevent a woman from succeeding in business, in industry, in the office, and on top of that, we allow women the freedom to choose to be whatever they desire, even if that desire is to be a home maker. And shame upon those who tell women they cannot do that.

English: Michelle Obama and Barack Obama enjoy...

English: Michelle Obama and Barack Obama enjoy a fist pound at the New Hampshire primary speech. Cropped and Auto-Leveled with Paint.NET v3.5.6. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Exhibit C: Fear-mongering over the possible outcomes of this election.

The Center for American Progress has an extensive article detailing how they believe Romney will be bad for women. Among their claims are the ideas that Romney would “erode access to contraception and threaten its legality”, and “would deny women paid sick days and family and medical leave”. You can watch videos videos of supporters at Obama rallies claiming that Romney would return women’s rights to 1512. And then there’s the hugely broadcast line from the 2nd debate where we learned that Romney has binders full of women.

I suppose if you repeat a lie often enough, enough people start to believe it’s the truth. And the various lies regarding Republicans, Romney, and the Right in general regarding women have certainly been repeated ad nauseum, especially of late in these increasingly desperate-sounding and waning days of the Obama presidency. No Republican will stand in the way of a woman seeking contraception. What we will also will not do is assume that you need the help of the government to choose a contraceptive or purchase it. Most of them are available the counter and don’t cost very much. And instead of assuming women need their hands held through this process, Republicans generally assume women are quite capable of taking care of themselves with this and other issues regarding their reproductive health. In the MRCTV video linked above, at least the woman who claims women’s rights would go back to 1512 recognized she wouldn’t lose the right to vote. But then I’d ask her: What will you actually lose? It’s one thing to make a wild and highly inflammatory comment such as this flippantly, it’s quite another to have facts and figures the back up your claims. And regarding Romney’s binders full of women, the outrage over this line came from the party of Clinton and Kennedy, and as some noted, the women in Romney’s binders were being considered for C-level positions in a significant State, as opposed to Obama’s Julia and all the millions of women on the unemployment roles in President Obama’s America.

The War on Women is a crass and manufactured attempt to keep people in line and voting for the left’s morally, intellectually, and economically bankrupt positions in spite of their own true best interests.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

May We Always Be Happy…

 I Pandora  No Responses »
Oct 252012
 
English: This is an alternate crop of an image...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

…and may our enemies always know it.

Thanks to Sarah Palin for this gem of an Irish blessing.

Here’s to the happiness of being the true lovers of liberty!

Having an accurate view of the world, even if our enemies would call it dour and depressing, is the best foundation for getting on with life, laughing at what we can, and crying at what we must. And always, always, always striving for what is best, what is right, and what is good.

Enhanced by Zemanta

To Summarize Mr. President

 I Pandora  No Responses »
Aug 242012
 
Obama

Obama (Photo credit: NatalieMaynor)

R. Emmet Tyrell, writing in the Washington Times, argues President Obama’s campaign is going for the moron vote. I’m not sure I’d use that word, but I certainly recognize there seem to be more people who are willing to assume the worst regarding anybody who disagrees with them, and who are willing to say so publicly and to act upon that assumption, and it certainly seems that’s who the President is hoping will vote for him.

Let us come to the point. Mr. Obama is reaching out to his very own special constituency. It is composed of those who believe that the Republicans would put up as their candidate for the presidency a person who in his business life would engage in fraud, tax evasion and even murder. Mr. Obama is casting his net for the moron vote. I do not believe there are enough morons out there to re-elect him.

From Obama’s Looking For The Moron Vote.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Election Link Roundup

 I Pandora  No Responses »
Oct 292010
 
Don't Tread on Me flag
Image by St. Murse via Flickr

What is at stake this election?

Abortion: The health care bill passed by Democrat majorities in congress and signed by President Obama contains provisions supporting increased federal support and engagement in the wholesale infanticide championed by leftists. For this reason alone our voice should be strong and unwavering in criticism of those who supported such a travesty.

Poor: Democrat leadership have continued to support and expand the reach of programs that enforce a permanent underclass. Welfare provisions that punish stable, two-parent, families. Education bureaucracy that stifles innovation and imprisons untold millions of children in schools that ought to be shut down. Opposition to school choice and voucher systems that would free these children from a future of dependency.

Liberty: The current leadership in Washington are convinced they know best. From the biggest decisions we make to the smallest things we take for granted, Washington is there to tell us what to do, how to do it, and to slap our wrist when they feel like it.

All this must end now. And Tuesday is now.

To the links:

While they’re just college students, they hold rather forcibly to an idea and then find themselves to be going against any and all known and accepted science. So what do they do? Why the science must not be all it’s cracked up to be.

Watch these students try to defend the indefensible. It’s rather sad seeing the hash they make of it.

Oh, and actually they’re not “just” college students. They are actually members of a group run by Planned Parenthood. This is the best they’ve got.

It’s the economy stupid. And the optimum economy is comprised of you and me doing our best to create something we can share and trade for something someone else created. Bill Whittle breaks it down.

Charles Krauthammer says Democrats are losing this election season because they haven’t been able to control the narrative the way they used to. I agree. With the advent of the internet, the importance of traditional media has faded just a little. And that was just enough that contrary voices can now be heard above the din of the talking heads telling us what we ought and ought not believe.

This frustrates the Democrat leadership.

But after trotting out some of these (historical) charges with a noticeable lack of success, President Obama has come up with something new, something less common, something more befitting his stature and intellect. He’s now offering a scientific, indeed neurological, explanation for his current political troubles. The electorate apparently is deranged by its anxieties and fears to the point where it can’t think straight.

And P.J. O’Rourke asks why Democrats hate themselves. And addresses a common theme I hear ever more frequently.

Perhaps you’re having a tiny last minute qualm about voting Republican. Take heart. And take the House and the Senate. Yes, there are a few flakes of dander in the fair tresses of the GOP’s crowning glory—an isolated isolationist or two, a hint of gold buggery, and Christine O’Donnell announcing that she’s not a witch. (I ask you, has Hillary Clinton ever cleared this up?) Fret not over Republican peccadilloes such as the Tea Party finding the single, solitary person in Nevada who couldn’t poll ten to one against Harry Reid.

Don’t give up or give in to depression or cynicism. Sure the glass is half empty and the people who claim to be bringing the pitcher always seem to be the most abject idiots and inconsistent failures. But there is always hope. So long as we can still vote.

Remember though, it can take 2 of our votes to counter one of theirs. Fraud and deceit are more and more the name of the game. With lawless organizations like the New Black Panthers and SEIU and public-sector unions and ACORN operating with relative impunity we must, each and every one of us, stand and be counted.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

How Could A Christian Vote Democrat, Part 2

 I Pandora  3 Responses »
Oct 142010
 

Strong Woman

Part 1 is here.

In responses to the previous article, comments were made that while Democrats are obviously not a good choice for support by Christians, the Republicans fare little better. Two friends in particular spoke to the fact they could not in good conscience support the Republicans any more than they could Democrats.

Professor Keith Drury, whose article I am commenting on here, finds much the same in a couple different issues in particular.

My own feelings on this are that I tend to stand with the Republicans because of what they say, to a large extent, and to a lesser extent because of what they do. And just as the rank and file Democrats may hold many of the same ideas as the Democrat leadership but for radically different (and possibly better) reasons or even may hold radically different opinions, evidenced by the fact that many Democrat successes in more mainstream areas of our country have been achieved by running to the right of the local Republican challenger, the rank and file Republicans tend to not agree with the master plan of the leadership of the party.

Regardless, ideologically conservative people who primarily inhabit the Republican party have been on the right side of the vast majority of issues for nearly 4 decades now, and with the principles written in the official platform of the Republican party of limited government, constitutionally defined freedoms, protections for all (including the unborn), and other points, I find it is necessary to support this side of the political spectrum.

Even better is the fact that the Tea Party movement has created a massive wave of pressure against the entrenched and now befuddled Republican leadership who have no more idea where this came from nor any more love for it’s outcome than the Democrats, because it is their party this groundswell is mostly affecting. Gone are the fat-cat lards of largesse, the caricatures of statesmen that have taken the name Republican and have been no better than common fleas (but that would unfair to fleas) once elected. Now it is the young and vibrant, the fresh and energized and ideological and impassioned people standing up and running for office and surmounting the odds.

Can you tell I’m excited?

Yes, the Democrats will likely experience extensive losses during the elections next month. But the winners will not be the old guard Republicans, they’re no more loved than the Dems.

Digressions aside, though, let’s resume the commentary.

Healthcare

Professor Drury’s next topic on which he finds himself more closely aligned with Democrats is healthcare.

His main argument? Doctors should not be getting rich healing the poor. Fair enough.

But what is the logic supporting a structure of punishment for those who do? And can we penalize all doctors for the greed of some?

No. A principle of basic human justice is that justice is never served if, while punishing the guilty, the innocent are willfully harmed.

Keith uses the evidence of Christ healing the sick constantly during his earthly life to show the value God places on caring for the health needs of people. This is all very well and good, but we are called to be wise, to be stewards. In human economic terms, this means efficient allocation of resources.

In fact, it is the money involved in the profession that attracts so many incredibly talented people into this field. And for every person who is in it for the money, there are likely others who are not. Look at all the free and cheap clinics that are sprouting up all over the place. Walgreens, then CVS, Walmart, and now even Target super stores have clinics where you can get standard preventative medicine for pennies on the dollar. And at the upper end of the health care system, all that money funds amazing research providing cures we’d have trouble distinguishing from dark magic even 10 years ago.

The health care issue is fraught with peril, incredibly complex, and nothing I can solve here in this column. Suffice it to say, the federal government taking over health care will no more solve the issue than federal government taking over primary education has created a system embodying quality and equality.

Feminism

Professor Drury does not spend much time on this, except to note that while Republicans have talked the talk, they’ve not walked the walk.

The problem here is once again that it is not justice to harm the innocent.

Just as I cannot and should not under and law or logic known to God or man be held responsible for crimes committed by my Grandfather, so no man should or can be held responsible for a system they have not created or unjustly taken advantage of.

And yet, the prescription for the cure to the female condition is the unnatural hampering of males.

Would not a better solution be the removal of any and all barriers to equalize potential rather than outcome?

In so many social justice issues, the measure is always the outcome. Is the number of women making widgets equal to the number of men making widgets? Do they get paid the same? The problem is that there is no reasonable logical support for a system that guarantees equality of outcome. The only way to guarantee equality of outcome is to limit the potential of everybody until some unnecessary and destruct least common denominator is achieved. This is what the USSR tried and achieved. That is the socialist ideal. It’s the best you get when you look for real equality.

This is one reason why the American experiment has been such a rousing success. America, in it’s social and governmental systems never attempted to guarantee equality of outcome. Our founders recognized the moral folly of such an goal. Instead, there is equality of opportunity. All people are equal under the law. What one does with that inherent equality is their own. They can truly blame none but themselves if they fail to achieve all they could.

Continue with part 3.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

How Could A Christian Vote Democrat

 I Pandora  5 Responses »
Oct 132010
 
christian communism

Christian Democrat

Professor Keith Drury, of Indiana Wesleyan University, penned an article in 2008 explaining his reasons for voting primarily for the Democrat ticket. He has several specific points which he believes show that a traditional Christian belief system will tend to support the Democrat ideology more so than the Republican.

I disagree. (Well, that’s the news today, folks!)

The Caveats

Keith begins with the points where he agrees more with the Right:

Free trade

I believe in free trade because I do not worry about what is “best for America” but what is best for all of the world’s people—that is the Christian view I think.  On this issue I often fall in with the Republicans, and disagree with the protectionist inclinations of many Democrats.

Fiscal conservatism

I see this stance based on a doctrine of stewardship…  I believe it is unwise to go into debt to live high now then make future generations pay the bill—whether to pay for welfare, for a war in Iraq, or for a tax cut giveaway to the wealthy (or even middle class). Generations ought to pay our own bills—I think that’s biblical, or at least good Christian sense.

Opposition to special rights for homosexuals

I believe it is wrong to deprive gay Americans (or Americans who commit adultery, get divorced or otherwise sin) of their civil rights—such a fair access to housing or jobs. But I reserve the right of religious organizations and churches to hire whomever they want to based on whatever lifestyle issues they consistently practice.

Opposition to abortion

If I was a one-issue voter and abortion was the only issue I’d vote Republican.  But I have other issues to consider, and I honestly don’t think the Republicans actually deliver much on this issue…what they deliver most is rhetoric.

The Argument

Then Keith gets into the meat of his argument, the points where he believes the Democrat party more closely aligns with his understanding of Christianity and the instructions of the Scriptures.

First up is the environment.

…if we truly believe God created the snail darter and spotted owl how could we be so casual about the death of something God purposely put on earth?  Can I so lightly destroy the Creator’s creation?  And this does not even get into the pro-life aspect of the environment—pollution kills people…slowly but they are just as dead as a fetus when it does its work. I am a radical environmentalist because I believe God is creator of everything we have and we should to care for it like a gift. On this issue I have much affinity with the Democrats—my only complaint is they don’t go far enough.

There problems here are several. First it is private ownership of property that best protects and preserves the environment.  This is an immutable fact, that people care for and practice stewardship of that which has value to them, personally. It is not selfishness or slavish allegiance to the almighty corporation to speak the facts. In societies where people have not owned property, there has always been excessive waste, extreme pollution, and all the attending problems. In societies where people own property and have sovereign right over that land you find sustainable forestry, attempts to prevent natural disasters such as wildfires, gardens and preserves and protected wilderness.

Second, the leadership of the Democrat party is no more environmentally minded than your opinion of the leadership of the Republican party. It is a historical fact that those leading the environmentalist movement are socialists who have found a group they can champion who cannot protest. The goal of modern environmentalism is the enforced government control of the means of production and the enslavement of any and all people under the heel of communist master minds in the hope of creating a worker’s paradise. The Nazis were incredibly environmentally conscious in their propaganda, turning being green into a religious paradigm. The goal is the enslavement of people, rationalized, this time, by the plight of the spotted owl.

Next, the poor.

Caring for the poor is not an option for anyone who takes a serious reading of the Bible—it is a demand and even a test of whether I am really a Christian… I still don’t want the church to do it all. Why?  I think rich non-Christians ought to pay their fair share too.  When I pay my taxes I pay them like I pay my tithe—some of that money fulfills Christ’s command to care for the poor.   Democrats help me fulfill this command of Christ far better than most Republicans do…

The problem here is one of responsibility and internal consistency. First, all God’s commands regarding are to the Church and to Christians. He does speak to the political nation of Israel regarding treatment of the poor, but this is during the time of their Theocracy, when they were directly ruled by God, and something Keith says earlier in his argument may help clarify this distinction. “In my tradition (the holiness movement) we don’t expect unsaved people to live holy lives,” Keith says. This is perfectly acceptable. The world is not to be expected to think or act like Christians are commanded to act. It would be the height of folly on our part to expect the unrepentant and the unredeemed to act as thought repentant and redeemed.

Second, Keith, you can’t have it both ways. Either it is the church’s responsibility or it is not. Or it is individual responsibility or it is not. I don’t pretend that non-Christians cannot be generous and well-intentioned. Many of them are, and in ways that would put many Christians to shame. But the commands of the Bible are directly applicable to individual Christians and the Church. Any shirking or enforced sharing of that responsibility is wrong.

Third, doesn’t Keith sound a little selfish there? “I think rich non-Christians ought to pay their fair share too.” Are rich non-Christians directly and personally responsible for the poor among us? And if God did not exempt the Christian poor from the command to give, and in fact clearly and explicitly praises and encourages the giving from want more than the giving from ‘got’, why should we exempt the non-Christian poor from such a responsibility? After all, the poor in America are only relatively so, and are in fact wildly wealthy relative to their counterparts the world over.

Finally, a distinct difference between a politically-Right view of alms and a politically-Left view of alms is the source of the responsibility. I am responsible for doing what I can to alleviate the condition of those God has called me to serve. To the best of my ability and with appropriate and applicable due diligence to ensure wise use of those resources I have. This gives me two sub-responsibilities, that I produce resources I can share of, and that I do so wisely, with the stewardship Keith praises in his fiscal conservatism. A politically-Left person, such as Keith, sees alsm as a responsibility of the Government. God will not judge governments before His eternal throne. He judges people, their hearts, intentions, and actions. You, Keith, are responsible before God for how you gather and spend your resources for the benefit of your fellow man. You are not responsible for how you spend your neighbor’s resources to help his fellow man.

Read part 2.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Is There No Dissent?

 America  2 Responses »
Aug 052009
 
Norman Rockwell's Freedom of Speech

Norman Rockwell's Freedom of Speech

President Obama is still hoping he gets health care socialized before fall gets much underway and the Democrat leadership is anxious to deliver their messiah something palatable (to him and them) before he spurns them and finds a new set of disciples.

The fight waged on through the summer in the halls of our elected representatives and the screens of our TVs as it seems nearly the entirety of the elite class of America seems to want this.

The idea of class and elitism is an entirely different rant for an entirely different day. However, suffice it to say, America as a whole has been enablers at the very least in this creation of a super class. A group of people who, contrary to the very bedrock ideas and ideals of American idealism, are listened to and admired for reasons not much different than the aristocracy and royalty of those whose chains we sloughed off many years ago. Because they’re glamorous and seem to lead charmed lives and are adulated and congratulated by a fawning and feeding media pandering to a fawning and frenzied populace.

But Congress has let out for the summer and those we’ve employed to carry out the duties layed before them by the Constitution and with the admonition to remain constrained by the same, are coming home for their brief stint in what little of real life they must put up with prior to returning to the insular Washington D.C. And in these times at home, in order to breath new life into the flagging support for their beloved leader’s socialized health care initiatives, they are having what are being laughingly called townhall meetings.

Seeking to conjure up visions of colonial American citizens coming together in their meeting houses while ignoring the fact those meeting houses were usually churches and usually presided over by their pastors, they are creating what they hope to be media ready events with lots of weepy sob stories about how insurance carriers have shafted and cheated and dropped and left people with insurmountable bills.

But they read wrong.

The events are being taken over by citizens concerned, not that insurers are cheating them, but that government will fail and this failure will hurt far too many people than can be forgiven.

In video after video, we’re seeing soldiers and seniors and wives and mothers, fathers and sons standing up and demanding their representatives show them where in the Constitution they find the justification to perform what will be an abominable failure. Demanding reasons why if we can’t trust to government to run even the boondoggled “Cash for Clunkers” program, why we’re to trust them with our health care.

And those citizens, spending they’re own time and money and effort to attend these media events, are being called “plants” of the insurance companies, trained goons of the Republican party.

If the idea of socializing health care is such a valid and reasonable and good idea, why won’t we accept and allow discussion, alternate ideas, and even criticism of this so perfect program?

We have a democratic republic as our form of government and society in America and there is great weight and significance in the acceptance and even promotion of alternate ideas and opinions different from our own. The divergence of ideas even insures the strength of the positions eventually taken, as they’ve had to bear the strain of testing against all comers.

To provoke dissent and accept criticism is a proud tradition in America. It is perhaps our greatest strength.

To stifle protest and dismiss digressing opinions is becoming scarily commonplace in this administration.

Yes, it was “unpatriotic” to protest the Patriot act. But there wasn’t a talking point memo being read by every major network anchor stating they were planned plants of the evil Democrat leadership. And even that suppression was for the most part unwarranted, unnecessary, and un-American.

And so I ask, where is the decency? Where is the acceptance of those truly American ideals of protest and dissent? Where is the reason surrounding what is becoming a most messy muddle of he-said’s and she-said’s.

It’s like the butter battle all over again.

Start dissenting, before it’s not just unappreciated.

Castles Of Corruption

 America, California, constitution, Democrats, Election, Government, Republican, Taxes, Unions  2 Responses »
May 262009
 

Newt Gingrich:

Americans should look carefully at the anti-politician, anti-government mood exhibited in California last week.

This vote is the second great signal that the American people are getting fed up with corrupt politicians, arrogant bureaucrats, greedy interests and incompetent, destructive government.

The elites ridiculed or ignored the first harbinger of rebellion, the recent tea parties. While it will be harder to ignore this massive anti-tax, anti-spending vote, they will attempt to do just that.

Voters in our largest state spoke unambiguously, but politicians and lobbyists in Sacramento are ignoring or rejecting the voters’ will, just as they are in Albany, N.Y., and Trenton, N.J. The states with huge government machines have basically moved beyond the control of the people. They have become castles of corruption, favoritism and wastefulness. These state governments are run by lobbyists for the various unions through bureaucracies seeking to impose the values of a militant left. Elections have become so rigged by big money and clever incumbents that the process of self-government is threatened.

Albany is even more corrupt and dysfunctional. The special interests that own the legislators in both parties have been exploiting New York for two generations. They have impoverished the Upstate region to the point where it is a vast zone of no jobs and no opportunities. Their predatory tax and bureaucratic union behavior is beginning to cripple New York City. More and more successful New Yorkers are leaving the state. In the face of multiple crises, Gov. David Paterson has shown himself incapable of carrying out reform.

…the machines don’t care because all they want to do is own the wreckage.

…look again at the 62 percent-plus majority in California in favor of smaller government and lower taxes.

In the great tradition of political movements rising against arrogant, corrupt elites, there will soon be a party of people rooting out the party of government. This party may be Republican; it may be Democratic; in some states it may be a third party. The politicians have been warned.

Read all about it: States have become castles of corruption

But Dan Walters, in the Sacramento Bee,  says we shouldn’t be as upset as we are:

When… new taxes expire in a couple of years, Californians’ relative tax burden could also drop further – but if the economy is rising by then, it could also mean a surge of revenues even when the increased rates disappear.

If nothing else, these data indicate that while income and sales tax rates may make a difference, the economy is the biggest factor in how much tax Californians pay in aggregate.

When the economy rises, so do tax collections, and when it falls, revenues fall with it.

Walters asks if Californians taxes are too high or too low.

It’s not that the taxes are too high or too low, it’s the socio-political philosophy which supports such confiscatory policies and uses the money to pad pockets and entrench power.

Creativity

 I Pandora  1 Response »
Nov 272008
 

As usual I was browsing the news today (yes, it is thanksgiving, but I am over 2,000 miles away from my family and my adopted family hasn’t woken up yet) and I ran into this interesting article.

Just some basic concepts I pulled from the article.

  • Although creativity is rarely a prerequisite from the presidency but it should have been in Mr. Obama’s case. By promising change, Mr. Obama was promising somoething new or atleast newer (because it is assumed that the old establishment cannot change). This would require creativity to look outside of Washington and find competent staff members who can fill national level positions. However, this creativity and change doesn’t seem to be happening.

Barack Obama defended his decision to pack his new Cabinet with veteran Washington insiders and former Clinton officials yesterday after a campaign in which he promised change.

  • Mr. Obama doesn’t have a “New” plan. Throughout his campaign, Mr. Obama always said he had a plan, but never mentioned to show it. At the end he started listing steps of action that sounded a whole ton like core conservative values, however, no real plans, just promises to every person on welfare. Now, we are receiving evidence that he has no plan. As my point above mentioned, a plan for change would include reaching outside of Washington for influence and ideas. However, Mr. Obama is simply falling back on the core of his party, the Clintons. Hmm . . . is Mr. Obama a leader, or a mouthpiece?
  • Despite the appointments of Rahm Emanuel (the single most dangerous person in the Democrat party) and Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama’s party is still claiming he is center-right. What is scary is that they are saying this about their most liberal member. I believe that the Liberals believe that this last election, and the huge turnout, gave them a mandate (a word the Conservative movement started using first) to drag this country down to European standards. However, a closer look at the election will tell a different story. In fact, the turn out at this election was much less than expected. The turn out this election was only about 10% higher than 2004 while the 2004 turnout was about 17% higher than 2000. Also, once again, youth did not vote. In fact, the majority of the increase in voting was because people who had already voted before, but hadn’t recently, voted. On top of that, these “liberal” voters, voted for traditional marriage in every state where it was being contested (though now the California Supreme Court is deciding whether a Constitutional Amendment is Constitutional [um . . . duh . . . it is the Constitution]).
  • One last point I really want to make. There are over 40 million people on welfare who can vote. Those people most likely voted their pocket books (which candidate will give me more), but, as my last point makes, I find it hard to say this about everyone else. I do though think I know why they voted. Here is my argument. Mr. Obama was constantly labeled as a great communicator (I am not sure how true this is because communicators actually communicate information). He was someone who spoke to the voters and kept them informed. The voters loved to listen to Mr. Obama, and I believe this is the Republican parties fault. The basics of leadership dictate that a leader must communicate with his followers. The leader must let the followers know what is happening, where they are going, and what they are to do. If a leader does this, they are halfway to success. This what Mr. Obama has done. He has said that the Democratic party needs to get to the White House, has to battle the Republicans, and needs support. Compare this to the Republican party. In the election we were told, we dont’ need the conservatives (till they realised that the conservative vote was their only vote), we dont’ have an enemy (after all, we want this to be a civil election), just get the White House, who cares what we do after that (maybe we can do what we have been doing, it has worked so far). However, even before the election, we the voters have not been led. After all, what is really happening in Iraq? And who is telling us what has happened? Oh, the media, why can’t the President tell us? Communicate with us and let us know that he needs our support? There was no communication about the financial crash. The Washington Insiders just got together and came up with a plan without communicating the situation to the voters. Sure, the Republicans have challenged the Democrats on their policies, but have they told the voters about the Democrat policies and how they could be countered? Although I do loath Mr. Obama’s rash of news conferences (he is not the President yet), he is fulfilling people’s basic needs, communication.
 Older Entries