Bigots to the Left of Me, Dingbats on the Right
THE BIGOTS
My email program tried to warn me on a recent Sunday evening when I opened my latest message from the Democratic Party’s Organizing for America (OFA) group. But did I listen? Nooooo.
Silly me. Thunderbird thought the whole thing was a scam. It was absolutely correct.
The email invited me to attend an OFA gathering on Monday, April 12, in Cincinnati “to celebrate the historic passage of health insurance reform — and your role in making it happen.”
So I went. What was supposed to be a “celebration” was marred first by an outrageous slander against the most important genuine grassroots movement in at least two generations, and then sullied further by a United States congressman who bought into it. That congressman also revealed that his posturing before the legislation’s passage was really a substance-free show.
I went into the gathering thinking that Ohio First District Congressman Steve Driehaus’s purpose there would be to tell attendees what’s in store for them in the brave new world of state-run medical care.
Recall that Driehaus was a member of the so-called Stupak Six group of allegedly pro-life congresspersons, including the now retiring Bart Stupak of Michigan, who said they would not vote for state-controlled health care unless it included prohibitions on the use of federal funds for abortions at least as strong as those contained in the landmark Hyde Amendment. Henry Hyde’s greatest legacy became law in the mid-1970s and survived a 1980 Supreme Court challenge. Driehaus ultimately voted “yes,” so I expected to hear why he did so and why he felt that pro-lifers should agree with his vote.
Keep in mind that the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported the following on Thursday, March 18, three days before the bill passed in the House:
Driehaus, a Democrat, supported last year’s House bill but has said he plans to vote no on the current bill because he worries it doesn’t go far enough to prohibit federal money from being spent on abortions.
Because the venue was a church and a congressman would be present, I thought that the speeches might be free of the hateful rhetoric that the left has brazenly and falsely directed at anyone and everyone opposing ObamaCare during the weeks since it became law. Uh, not exactly.
There is good news. No more than 50 people other than the scheduled speakers were there. That’s really pathetic, given that the church is located within a half-hour drive of about 1.5 million people, and that the related OFA invite more than likely went out to at least 0.5% of the group’s email list of 13 million (i.e., about 65,000 local residents). What’s more, a dozen or more of the 50 attendees appeared to be hardcore, longtime activists, who on any given day can usually be counted on to attend whatever area leftist event might be taking place.
If there is really a groundswell of support among Democratic Party voters for what Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the Democratic Party did to the nation last month, it was almost totally absent from the “celebration.”
After opening the event with a prayer (separation of church and state was apparently on vacation), the moderator framed the gathering as a funeral, in the sense that years of “indecision, foolishness, and failure” were being buried. A Catholic nun then spoke, uttering the discomfiting and frequently expressed sentiment that the recently passed legislation is only “a step in the right direction” towards equity and justice.
A couple of speakers later, the Rev. Damon Lynch, whom the moderator described as “the president of us all,” spoke. Lynch’s claim to infamy is that in 2001, he more than anyone else in Cincinnati was responsible for fanning the flames of lawlessness that turned a tragic accidental death of a young African-American man at the hands of the city’s police into riots that made national news and sent the Queen City’s reputation into the tank for the better part of the next decade. Among other things, Lynch said that he prayed for a Driehaus victory against former First District Congressman Steve Chabot in November.
Next came Nathaniel Jones, a retired judge. Jones’s civil rights activism and legal defense activities during the 1960s and 1970s before his 23 years as a judge were mostly commendable, but what he said on this day was despicable.
Jones asserted that the basic motivation behind the just-passed legislation was the same as what led to the Civil War and was what the 1960s civil rights movement was all about.
Then, to at least a plurality of nods and “uh-huhs” from the audience, Jones said that those who are going around “carrying tea bags” are “the modern-day version of the KKK.” Yes, he did.
Eventually, Congressman Driehaus stepped up to decent but non-rousing applause.
He said nothing specific about the legislation. He told us that in his mind it was fundamentally a civil rights bill, providing the previously undiscovered civil right known as “peace of mind.” He also said nothing about how he was won over on the abortion issue; based on what he said next, his alleged pro-life beliefs appear to have been a ruse to keep America and his constituents in artificial suspense.
He twice described his pre-passage mindset in terms totally different from what he and the press portrayed in the run-up to the vote. Early in the speech, he said, “I was fully confident we would get to ‘yes.’” In a later statement, it turned into “I knew I would get there.” Especially note the “I” in the second quote. There can be no reasonable doubt that Steve Driehaus always intended to vote as he did.
As to the Reverend Jones’s scurrilous characterization of ObamaCare’s opponents, Driehaus, who at the beginning of his speech described Jones as a “legend,” said that he agreed with him. He also said that those same forces that opposed the stimulus are against cap and trade and are resisting the “realignment” that is occurring.
After telling the group that he needs them now more than ever during the next election campaign, Driehaus stepped away from the microphone to a standing ovation.
These, ladies and gentlemen, are your bigots on the left, who demonize any and all opposition in the harshest conceivable terms. It turns out that the Klan comparison I witnessed is not an isolated rant of a civil-rights veteran who has tragically lost his way, but is a meme that began the weekend before Jones spoke.
The left’s fundamental moral premise has always been the notion that the “needy”, i.e. those who’ve failed to earn a particular value and are thus “in need” of it, have a right to have those “needs” satisfied at the expense of the “less needy”, i.e. at the expense of those who have earned the value in question and thus are not “in need” of it.
This means that those who fail to earn something are nonetheless thereby entitled to it — while those who do earn it are thereby obligated to surrender it to the non-earners. Government’s role in this scheme being to use whatever level of force is required to insure that the non-earners obtain possession of the “needed” values produced by the earners.
It is this notion that has served as the moral foundation and justification for the entire welfare state that is now bleeding America’s productive people into oblivion.
“Insane” is not too strong a word for this view of morality. Unfortunately, most of Americans either believe it, albeit lukewarmly, or simply don’t know how to resist it — and that includes the Republican party.
Indeed, Republicans have historically not only failed to denounce this insanity, they have endorsed it. Even the sainted Ronald Reagan — cherished hero of those alleged champions of freedom and capitalism known as the “conservatives” — openly embraced this idea just a few weeks into his presidency. In a speech discussing his plans to cut Federal spending (which he never did), Reagan said:
We will continue to fulfill the obligations that spring from our national conscience. Those who, through no fault of their own, must depend on the rest of us — the poverty stricken, the disabled, the elderly, all those with true need — can rest assured that the social safety net of programs they depend on are exempt from any cuts.
Not only is this an explicit endorsement of the welfare state, it holds another gift to the left: the creation of the expression “social safety net”. This phrase expresses very precisely the view of capitalism promulgated by the left: that it is akin to a risky, high-wire act, wherein everyone is in danger of falling off, through no fault of their own.
Republicans like Reagan, and much of the American electorate, have always believed that they could police and limit the extent of the redistribution of earnings to the non-earners demanded by this morality. They thought they could find a “middle way” without “going to extremes” — that we could have a limited amount of welfare state that we could easily afford.
But now the futile nature of that strategy is manifest. The American people have awakened to the fact that once you give cannibals permission to take a small bite out of your hide, they will only get hungry again and come back for more. And now, inspired by Cannibal-in-Chief Obama, they invoking the right to a full meal at our expense — the aim to devour us, pure and simple.
The obvious answer to this is to denounce this “morality” for what it is: an insane inversion of justice which demands that our children be born, not free and independent with an inalienable right to their own lives — but instead born into bondage — into a lifetime of bondage to whatever “needs”, wishes, wants, whims or desires any allegedly “needy” group can convince the government should be satisfied by confiscating the earnings of the “less needy”.
The notion that some have a right to exist on the backs of others is the disgusting notion of involuntary servitude. The notion that today’s adults can dictate the enslavement of the next generation — dooming them to whatever amount of labor is required to provide unearned benefits to “the needy” — is an unspeakably monstrous injustice. The whole notion is viciously immoral and unjust — and God help us if Americans don’t grow the spine necessary to reject it.
The problem is that too many people have bought into the lie that money stolen from others and given to the “needy”, is charity. And nobody opposes “charity”, right?
Charity is when a person voluntarily gives their time or money to help others. Taxes by definition, are not voluntary.
Mr. Smith,
Excellent post.
Jim
One could not possibly blame orphans who did not murder their parents for their condition, but the point stands. The State has no business taking care of orphans, save those of our soldiers. No one has greater moral claim on our generosity than orphans, therefore, the government has no business being charitable. Christ’s Church is the entity that is and of right ought to be responsible for caring for those who have fallen into misfortune through no fault of their own, and even those who royally screwed up, but who want to turn their lives around.
Michael Smith. That is a brilliant assessment on what ails the U.S., as well as the rest of the world. You are the embodiment of John Galt. Bravo!
I believe many of us are aware of this problem. It is that no one has been able to solve it. And the reasons are simple. 1) Who wishes to be the first to watch someone die for lack of food, clothing or shelter? Particularly in the information age. And 2) those who need, will always be ready to take what they want, in any manner possible.
“If there’s a way to blow the electoral opportunity of a lifetime and put the left’s bigots in their place — out of power for many years — it seems that the Republican Party is stubbornly determined to find it.”
I know the reason for the Republican stupidity, the GOP’s 30% “Highly Educated Whites” are Liberal’s “Useful Idiots”.
The useful idiots are typically labeled RINO or Moderate so as to appear liberally sophisticated unfortunately George Will’s “Highly Educated Whites” never learned that liberalism is a mental disease.
The Republican Party is not the problem, the problem is the 30% “Highly Educated Whites” working as foolish tools for Ivy-Inbred Liberal tyrants.
Love that term. For the golden state it’s CRPINO. What pathetic mindsets. All by themselves their behaviors tend to refute Darwin.
The Catholic Church sipped from the filthy cup of Social Justice evil-so filthy is this cup that 50% of weekly Catholic Church goers betrayed their Sanctity of Life faith when they voted for an infanticide (baby-killing) President Barack Obama.
I pity those of the Catholic faith because God is cleaning out the filthy cup they refused to clean themselves; pray forgiveness Catholics because you are now condemned to purgatory for your betrayal.
To the angel of the church in Thyatira, write this: “The Son of God, whose eyes are like a fiery flame and whose feet are like polished brass, says this:
‘I know your works, your love, faith, service and endurance, and that your last works are greater than the first.
Yet I hold this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, who teaches and misleads my servants to play the harlot and to eat food sacrificed to idols.
I have given her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her harlotry.
So I will cast her on a sickbed and plunge those who commit adultery with her into intense suffering, unless they repent of her works.
I will also put her children to death. THus shall all the churches come to know that I am the searcher of hearts and minds and that I will give each of you what your works deserve.
But I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not uphold this teaching and know nothing of the so-called deep secrets of Satan: on you I will place no further burden, except that you must hold fast to what you have until I come.’”
Revelation 2:18-25
This is unfortunately why the American people are angry. We are governed by fools and oligarchs who see no reason to change, and demonize those of us who demand it. Let’s just keep moving forward and remember that our guiding principles are in the US Consitution not the party platforms fo either the Republican ro Democratic parties.
The Ohio Republicans are truly pathetic, and have been at least since that milquetoast Taft came in and botched up the works. Year after year we climb the tax burden and unemployment ranking of the states, until we sit somewhere between Massachusetts and California now. Stupid stupid stupid.
Yes, we go from RichPubliCons to Demoquacks; and that defines the problem!
Solution is easy, but first the problem acknowledged. Like alcoholic…
I’m a Republican from the Buckeye State and I couldn’t agree more with this assessment of the Ohio GOP. The party is dominated by timid careerists and time-servers who are almost indistinguishable from their Democrat counterparts except that the Dems are both focused and completely ruthless. Mike DeWine is the perfect example of the feeble “hands-across-the-aisle” type (which really helped him two years ago) who has no convictions other than electing Mike DeWine is a good idea. Whatever the condition is that is the exact opposite of having fire-in-the-belly, the Ohio GOP has it.
Being from Ohio until 2006 and a former activist from Westerville, a Columbus suburb, Your assessment of the Ohio GOP is dead on. Bob Bennett is a careerist wimp. Look who they have right now-George Whine-o-bitch , a dead on RINO. Mike DeWhiner, another loser(whose son is now running for office). Pat Tibieri, RINO congressman who suceeded Kasich. Even now-Rob Portman? hes a George Bush RINO. Hes better than anything than anyone the commie demoncraps can muster(Jennifer Brunner-we used to call her horseface). Frankly, Kasich might be the best candidate they have and He doesnt exactly overwhelm me. Hes a RINO in some respects. Its time to drain the swamp there and quite a few other places-Illinios and New York can certainly use some improvements.
Bottom line: you can’t sell it when the girl across the street gives it for free.
Country Club Republicans are more at fault than the freeloading Left, since they should have known better, but did nothing. Rather, they HELPED the Huns come in the door.
Howdy Doody McConnel.
Bozo McCain, son of a son of an admiral with a gigolo fortune, no brains and less resolve?
Suntan Orrin Hatch and all his look-alike mumble witted mild mannered milquetoasts?
It’s over, and it’s been over a long time. Only the bleating and the bleeding is to come.
I agree with the sentiments expressed here (at least 1 through 9, which is what is here as I write this). Unfortunately, we are in Donald Rumsfeld’s position when the Iraq War began. To paraphrase what he said: You have to win the election with the Party you have, not the Party you want. After the election is over (and hopefully won), start working on making over the Party so it becomes what you want it to be. Otherwise you will lose, and two more years of these bozos in power and who knows what will happen to the country.
Jack
I would suggest that Rumsfeld’s quote may not be applicable in Ohio’s case. There will be NO way to elect the existing Ohio Republican party slate as it now stands AND THEN change it. You change the party in the primaries, which the primary system is designed to do, and then elect THAT new Republican party. I believe the days of electing “our” guy and then not closely watching his/her performance are thankfully over.
Jim Douglass
I am an ohio voter currently registered as a democrat. I am an independent voter who usually votes for republicans. I will never, under any circumstances, vote for Mike. I give no money to the oprino because their head guy is a DeWine. If I want to waste money, I’ll go to a movie. Setting fire to my cash would be a better expenditure of my resources. First do no harm. I will support tea party candidates and not vote in races that feature RINO’s and Dims. The real contest is for the soul of the Ohio Republican Party. When the dim-lites are out of leadership roles in the state party, I will vote straight ticket. I am also active in the tea parties. There are a lot like me, here in Ohio. We’ve had it with the Dems altogether, and unless the R’s show that they have core principles of conservatism, no votes. I’m tired of the slow boat to hell. If I can’t have another destination, I want the express.
Is it too late to change your registration so that you can vote in the Republican primaries? If you want to fix the party, that is the place it will have to be done.
In Ohio at primary time, you pick which primary you want to vote in and then you are automatically registered in that party until the next primary. This year I become a registered Republican. That doesn’t mean squat to me, as I am an independent voter. I consider myself a Libertarian/conservative. In the last election cycle I felt it was more important to stop Obama from becoming President than anything on the R slate. Alas, I failed, but not for the lack of trying. I still don’t know why people listened to his rhetoric and paid no attention to his record. I knew he was a communist long before he was elected, but what do I know?
Roll-over RINO’s…
Voter: So,Mr.RINO how are you different than a Democrat?
RINO: Um, I’m a Republican…
Voter: …Who votes like a Democrat? How are you different that them?
RINO: Um….
Voter: You mean that you promise but, you don’t deliver,where as they do?
RINO: But if I vote NO, all the Democrats and media won’t like me anymore….
Voter: Your not there to be liked by anyone but us,your voters, you are there to do a job.
RINO: Ummm….
Voter: Can you flip burgers? That might be your next job.
The GOP didn’t earn the monicker “The Stupid Party” for nothing. Generally speaking the only difference between the GOP and the Dems is the speed at which they are willing to grow government and erode our rights. The Dems are fairly open and quick about it but the GOP tries to hide its objectives and go slow.
Those welfare programs are called “Entitlements” for a reason. Entitlement is equal to “a Right” here in the US. So, theft from one group to pay another for its votes is considered by many a right. This is what has killed every Democracy that has ever existed, when the masses learned they could vote themselves other people’s money. It won’t stop until the productive class is bled to death at which point the whole system falls down. And no, the US is no longer the Republic its was established as, but a Democracy and it became so when FDR established the entitlement programs and was cemented as such under Johnson’s Great Society.
From long before the American Revolution, towns gave assistance to the poor in varying ways and the expenses were paid through taxes. The Principle of government helping the poor did not originate with TR, Wilson, or FDR, but is longstanding. Who gets covered for how long and how much it will cost us on local, state, or Federal taxes are all negotiable and adjustable, but some here are sounding as if the the underlying PRINCIPLE is un-American, unethical, or traitorous; you pick the word. Alas, it is really not about principle here, but about percentages. In fact, most of modern government and politics boils down to percentages. Principles may push the given percentages up or down, but they don’t seem to make them go away, and I am at least 90% sure of that.
Dwight, you do have a point there. The system you mention was an import from England where it had existed for a time. The help was more akin to what would soup kitchens and flop houses today, not a decent living for a vote. It was intended to keep the truly needy from starving or freezing to death. Then there were the workhouses and things that put those who could to work in exchange for their take.
You’re right about the percentages. Politicians do look at the percentages, such as the percantage of taxpayer votes vs. the number of other votes they will gain from their programs. The fairly new dimension is how many workers don’t pay taxes but still get goverment handouts, including tax refunds on the taxes they don’t pay. That system is working for the politicians to buy their votes, but the economy is going to take it on the chin for all this largess. Most folks won’t notice for a while because they don’t currently pay taxes, but that will change with the VAT and carbon taxes, maybe.
Slavery existed for thousands of years before it was finally recognized for the evil that it was, and eliminated.
Funniest thing about that slavery thing. It existed for all human history until the industrial revolution negated the need for cheap labor. THEN people noticed that it was evil, and stopped doing it in the way that they had always done it before. We still have slavery in many forms, but not the institutionalized way that we used to.
Dwight wrote:
Who gets covered for how long and how much it will cost us on local, state, or Federal taxes are all negotiable and adjustable, but some here are sounding as if the the underlying PRINCIPLE is un-American, unethical, or traitorous; you pick the word.
Oh, I submit that the underlying principle of the welfare state is most definitely un-American and unethical.
What matters in this context is not what was being done in America before or even after the Revolution. After all, slavery was being practiced in most of the colonies, and that doesn’t make slavery compatible with American principles or ethical.
The founding principle of America was the realization that all men are created equal, with all equally possessing the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — coupled with the recognition that the proper purpose of government is to “secure” these rights .
This was a radical and revolutionary notion that shocked the world — for it was a complete repudiation of the centuries-long, globally-practiced system wherein certain individuals, such as kings, queens, barons, dukes, czars, rajahs, etc, were held to be inherently superior to others and entitled to rule the inferior masses by force. Equal rights for all meant that no one could lay claim to any sort of special, superior status — nor relegate others to any sort of inferior status.
(Yes, the initial implementation of that principle in America was flawed. It took time and a horrific civil war to eliminate slavery and more years of struggle to win voting rights for both blacks and women. But the Declaration of Independence set America on an irresistible path to equal rights for all. And the initial errors in its implementation does not make the principle false.)
Now the welfare state is based on the notion that the “needy” have a right to have their “needs” satisfied at the expense of the “less needy” — and the left has pushed hard to define “rights” to include the right to goods and services, such as healthcare.
But any such interpretation of rights necessarily creates (and maintains) an inequality of rights — for the only way to grant to some the right to something like healthcare is to deny the same right to others and instead force those others to pay, not only for their own healthcare, but to pay also for the healthcare that is being claimed “by right” by the first party.
Defining rights to include rights to goods and services thus destroys political equality of rights and divides the citizens into two groups: a group that possesses special rights denied to others — and another group, denied the “special rights” and instead burden with a special duty: the duty to do the extra work required to pay for the “special rights” claimed by the first group.
This establishes an aristocracy of “the needy” — a group deemed to posses both special rights denied to others and the special power to burden others with an unchosen, involuntary obligation. It means that man is not born free and independent — but, rather, born into bondage to whatever “needs”, wishes, whims, desires and wants any “needy” group can convince the government to satisfy at the expense of the less needy.
A legally-structured, legally-imposed inequality of rights is thoroughly un-American and completely contradictory to the principle articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
As for its ethical status, I would ask by what theory of morality does a value belong, not to the man who produced and earned it, but instead to the man who failed to earn it and thus “needs“ it?
Or to put it in more concrete terms: if it was a great evil to force one man to pick another man’s cotton — and indeed it was an evil thing — why then is it acceptable and moral to force one man to pay another man’s doctor bills?
I submit that by any rational theory of right and wrong, no man can claim a right to exist at the involuntary expense of another man.
An articulate “principled” response, but since we have to live in the real world, what percentages would you settle for?
According to your principle, NO tax money should ever be used to help anyone, beyond the amount of tax money which they have contributed. As soon as you make one small exception or qualification, then we are talking percentages.
Evidently, gullible, possibly Jesus-influenced human beings in America tend to think that the well-off, working to support some of the less well-off, is not the same as the poor, losing their freedom and having to work for no wages to support the well-off. In other words, the poor fools do not accept the moral equivalence of slavery and government assistance.
Practically speaking, a VAT tax gets some of the welfare folks money back into the coffers, but again, whether or not it works to stabilize our economic situation is all in the percentages.
Love the column and cannot read ORPINO without giggling. When I was young and stupid (and lived in Cuyahoga Falls), I used to wince when Governor James Rhodes would say “Profit is not a dirty word in Ohio”. It was so un-hip. So un-cool. So middle-class. Because God is both just and merciful, he allowed me a chance to do penance by living in Maryland. There, I have learned the wisdom (unfortunately late in life) of Governor Rhodes’ methods and beliefs. I can only pray that the next Governor of Ohio says that “Profit is not a dirty word in Ohio” in his inaguration speech.
Mark Percich
Michael Smiths’s comment (above) is one of the best comments I’ve read anywhere. It is impassioned, principled and to the point. I was going to comment on Mr. Blumer’s article. But Mr. Smith’s comment is actually more important. It goes to the root of the problem today which no litany of politician’s concrete second-hander rhetoric can match. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
Mr. Michael Smith. Who are you? Your essay above captures the entire problem of modern and (erstwhile?) America, land of the free and home of the brave. Drip by drip, bit by bit, inattention and appeasement, get along and don’t make waves — however you say it we conservatives have frittered away our heritage.
We have allowed our schools to be taken over and our free press to be sold out to those who would enslave. Each “educated” generation is more ignorant and less attached to what Mr. Smith do clearly described — that unique American vision of human society.
Really there is nothing fundamentally different about the democrats in the USA and the former communists in the USSR. Exactly the same thing — the goal is to create a dependent sub-class who can be duped into supporting a life of extravagance for “the party”.
I hate to say this but only a fool or a perpetual irrational optimist does not realize the a real second American revolution is coming or will have to happen to reverse this. Electing republicans is better than electing democrats — but it only changes the slope of the decline.
And it is so sad we did not need to let it come to this — but we did.
So let’s see; current Dems are “exactly the same” as former Communists in the USSR. Hmmm, In Russia, they did not have to create a dependent sub-class, because the serfs already were there. For someone who appears to think only in black and white, like yourself, the only solution must be to let ‘em starve and shoot ‘em if they get out of line, right? Or is there any gray area compromise, the kind that rational minds usually can finally agree on to avoid blood in the streets (or at least any more blood than is already there)?
Just out of curiosity, can you give me your estimate of what per cent of the American population are “fools and irrational optimists” and what per cent share your trenchant knowledge that we need a “real second American Revolution?” (Which, I assume means blood, not adjusting percentages.)
Whole generations of able-bodied Welfare families aside, some of the biggest teat suckers aren’t ‘poor’ at all and they demand HUGE, costly, unsustainable bennies for their gravy-laced union-’protected’ government jobs.
Delia said: “…some of the biggest teat suckers aren’t ‘poor’ at all and they demand HUGE, costly, unsustainable bennies for their gravy-laced union-’protected’ government jobs.”
That is true Dalia. I’m not going waste my time responding to Dwight. He had no point anyway. He was merely angry because liberals and democrats never want their hypocrisy spoken of, or illuminated. The cockroach effect — light causes fright.
The need to create a dependent class, or have a pre-existing dependent class of people to exploit is a red herring and has nothing to do the discussion. It has no bearing on the fact that American democratic party leaders are essentially following the path and using the methods of the communist party (some maybe masking for now as socialists — the step between).
America was a unique social experiment that worked because it departed from the europen model of royals and nobles versus the surfs and the commoners. We were all equal under God and under the Constitution. As a result people were free to think and act to the limits their abilities so for more than a centruy we lead the world in everything.
The goal of the progressives and the democrats esp. under Obama it to turn this all back and regain control of the people. They want to control information flow, control education, control business, control banks, control health care, control energy, control your lifestyle, and control how you think and speak. It is hate speech, sedition and racism when you act peacefully or speak out – but patriotic when they assemble or speak.
Current leaders of the democratic party are socialists heading toward communists — some are there already.
As we will see in soon I think all a small fraction of the registered democratic votes are starting to see this –Dwight is not one of the enlightened dems.
Whether the second American revolution is at the ballot box or at the end of a gun point depends on the grit of those who take control of govenment in the upcomming years I think.
Would that the problem could be solved by throwing out the nasty, Commie Dems. I don’t care all that much any more whether the President is a Dem or a Repub.
For 100 years America had an unlimited supply of new land which one could attain for reasonable money and through hard work be pretty much assured of a good shot at a minimum, sustenance, and quite possibly, comfort. Then the cheap land ran out and at least minimal success for the average Joe could be achieved by taking a manufacturing job; not the world’s greatest deal, but many families were supported by such. Now, much more supposedly depends on getting an education, understanding, if not manipulating finance, and finding one’s niche…and/or increasingly…getting a government job. We may buy some stuff at Walmart, but God help us if we have to work there. We survive on our bubbles; housing bubbles are always good for a huge lift, but this last one crashed in ways that deeply wounded the whole economy. We have to hope that our economy can re-invent itself, yet once again. Certain percentages will have to be adjusted. Obviously at his point, we needs to grow the private sector faster than government, if at all possible. How to do this is damned hard to figure out, because you really are not going to be able to shrink government. Muttering about a second American Revolution is easy, but it does not solve our problem. Maybe it make powerless people feel powerful to fantasize about such things, but it’s pretty much hot air.
Dwight: “How to do this is damned hard to figure out, because you really are not going to be able to shrink government. Muttering about a second American Revolution is easy, but it does not solve our problem. Maybe it make powerless people feel powerful to fantasize about such things, but it’s pretty much hot air.”
I agree it is hard to figure out. But I am not muttering about a revolution. I am predicting one. You can’t shrink government? Why can’t you? It does take the will to do so — or at least END its continuous growth. Just because the weak-willed Europeans won’t that means we can’t either? You think there is a another option? OK what?
Obama has shown that all past administrations were pikers as spenders. We now have deficits that will exceed 10% of GNP (they were 4% in 2009) In less than 20 years on our current trajectory we will have deficits equal to 90% of GNP. Then the ENTIRE annual tax revenue will be needed to service the debt — now that is what we could say is ZERO discretionary spending. I assume neither of us believe in the tooth fairy?
If you release the valve on a tube connecting a tank of compressed gas and another tank under vacuum the gas will flow one direction — always. When the USA has zero disposable income there will be a significant consequence — certainly. I am calling it a revolution. I realize that idea is not grey.