Obama’s Vision of ‘Fairness’
Speaking from the U.S. Capitol, President Barack Obama laid out his vision for the future during his State of the Union address. In a curious, perhaps unintentional, manner the president offered his position for a progressive course for the nation with the emphasis on fairness. “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules,” he noted.
But what does fairness mean and how does it influence the future course of events? Will the government be placed in the position of adjudicating fairness? Will fairness emerge from bureaucratic coercion? And is the casualty of fairness limitations on liberty?
Traditionally, fairness to the extent it was a precedent in our history was tied inextricably to opportunity, creating those conditions that give all people from any background a chance to succeed. Very often this claim existed more in the breach than in reality, but it was part of a vision that brought millions of immigrants to our shores and accounted for the success of uncounted citizens.
Occasionally the government played a role in this matter when arbitrary obstacles were placed in the way of opportunity, e.g., Jim Crow laws. But more often than not the heavy hand of government was unnecessary as long as the freedom of the individual was preserved. Freedom means, in effect, the ability to rise and to fail, the chance to seize the moment or let it slip by.
If one relies on government in order to achieve fairness — a somewhat dubious concept in the first place — a class of bureaucrats will enforce the rules of economic engagement. These people will decide who gets and who gives. Power will be centralized and absolute. Moreover, the tax system becomes an instrument for imposing redistribution arrangements.
Obviously the rich will pay more than the poor when it comes to taxes. That is self-evident. But how much more should they pay and how progressive should the system be? At the moment, the top one percent pay more than 40 percent of federal taxes. That is certainly disproportionate. Is it fair? Who is to say? And how much more would make it fair? It is also obvious that extortionate rates will drive many out of our tax system as they seek more reasonable rates abroad.
For some reason many people think the skills of a Sherlock Holmes are necessary to ferret out the President’s unwholesome lens of race through which he views the world. Many people think Obama simply doesn’t think this way. I think a creditable case has been made that Obama does in fact view the country from a “payback” mentality with the whole nine-yards of post-traumatic slave syndrome, the “New Jim Crow” in play, “white privilege” and an playing field that is not level and a country where black folks are still unfairly denied access.
The problem with that is that one is inferring racism by it’s shadow rather than by its presence. If a sports team is always in last place because of a theory of lack of revenue and revenue sharing is put in place and the team is still in last place the blame is still pointed everywhere but the last place team according to the black Left’s view of things. Lack of equal performance becomes inextricably linked to the idea of a continued presence of white racism and nothing else. The only effective solution is therefore one that will never happen because it is not believed in.
If this in fact true, Obama’s policies make a lot of sense. His new website that specifically appeals to African-Americans rather than viewing them as just people claims for itself a case being made for connection by skin. Articles appearing in the mainstream black press such as “Black Professionals: We’ve Got Obama’s Back” show the feeling is mutual.
“the whole nine-yards of post-traumatic slave syndrome”
Makes no sense. Obama’s ancestors — depending on the parent — were either white or selling slaves to Arabs.
Rob, the “post-traumatic slave syndrome” is not something one needs to come by honestly. It is a pret-a-porter suit of clothes that the truly enlightened choose to wear. Think OWS.
Now Rob, I’m not sure you really understand a great man’s quest for dreaming the impossible dream and demonstrating exemplary fairness in his own life, thus:
1) Defeat political opponent early in career by somehow magically getting closed court papers released to initiate a scandal against said opponent.
2) Rope-a-dope in a Presidential election by grabbing donations by any means possible while proclaiming political donations are a danger to the nation.
3) Foisting socialized medicine on an unwilling population and then exempting in advance thousands of political allies from the process.
4) Co-opting through the tax code, which is supposed to pay for legitimate government actions, the assets of half the nation and giving those assets to those of the other half of whom he approves, e.g. General Motors. Now really, nothing could be more fair than this.
5) Borrowing money from foreign lenders at an unprecedented rate, whom the progeny of this generation and future generations will have to repay.
6) Suing states of the U.S. for enforcing immigration laws basically identical to laws at the federal level.
Oh there are more acts of Obamian fairness. Many, many more.
There is no mystery to Obama’s racialist theories of fairness. He wrote about it up front during the 2008 campaign, not to speak of his presence in the congregation of Jeremiah Wright. Sadly, academe prefers to overlook his links to black liberation theology, which amounts to black supremacy all over the world. I wrote about it here: http://clarespark.com/2009/10/31/the-offing-of-martin-luther-king-jr-and-ralph-bunche/. If this piece intrigues you, check out my index to black power blogs: http://clarespark.com/2010/07/15/index-to-black-power-blogs/. Not surprisingly upper-class white liberals shaped the school curricula and social policy in general, not fringe black ministers like Farrakhan and Wright.
Uhbama firmly believes the ‘fairness’ fiction because HE is thee product of the ‘fairness’ initiatives and thinks it’d be a smashing success if strong-armed on a national scale.
Uhbama’s a guy who excelled/excels at NOTHING. Not sports, academia, leading, compromising, foreign policy, instilling diplomacy with our allies, holding firm to his decisions (too many to list though most recently his spineless 180 on PAC donors which he was ‘adamantly’ opposed to), understanding BASIC economics (Don’t you wish someone would ask if he knows what Capital Gains Tax is/means?) amongst numerous other subjects.
The kool-aid drinkers will point towards the, ‘Progress’ this empty vessel’s enacted.
When a superpower country has ~1.3% economic growth annually during Uhbama’s watch.. that’s an epic failure no matter how much spin is associated.
Fairness?
Hmmm.
The Unvetted One has been “mentored” on what “fairness” means by Frank Marshall Davis, radical professors at college, the Socialist Scholars movers and shakers, Jeremiah Wright and Donald Warden, …or so it has been said.
Bill Ayers, Alice Palmer, Carl Davidson, Rashid Khalidi…we know about what ALL these folks seem to think constitutes “fairness”.
If nearly EVERYONE you hang around with, all your mentors, dear friends, father figures…believe that “fairness” is retribution against “the man”, the overthrow of capitalism, destruction of the free market…agreement with those positions would be axiomatic.
The following “suggestions” have been made. The propaganda machine has studiously avoided any inquiry into them.
In 1987, Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour a.k.a. Donald Warden was solicited to raise money for Obama’s Harvard Law School education. The solicitation is likely to have come from Bill Ayers who at that time was finishing his Masters in Education at Bank Street College in NYC, Al-Mansour is an orthodox Muslim, a black nationalist, is an outspoken enemy of Israel, and mentor to Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton and his cohort, Bobby Seale.
At the time Al-Mansour associate Percy Sutton was raising money for Obama’s education, Al-Mansour was the top financial advisor to mega-billionaire Prince Al-Waleed (Al-Walid) bin Talal of the Saudi royal family. As of August 2009, Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal’s net worth is estimated at US$16.3 billion, down from $21 billion. He is ranked by Forbes as the 22nd richest person in the world. He has been nicknamed by Time magazine as the Arabian Warren Buffett.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/11/alwaleed-alsaud-money_cx_de_money06_0214alsaud.html
Percy Sutton connection to Harvard tuition paid for Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EcC0QAd0Ug&eurl=http://townhall.com/blog
Obama Had Close Ties to Top Saudi Adviser at Early Age, Wednesday, 03 Sep 2008 05:58 PM
http://newsmax.com/KenTimmerman/obama-sutton-saudi/2008/09/03/id/339914
Percy Sutton was Malcolm X’s attorney and a New York (Manhattan) Assemblyman. Percy Sutton was quite proud of Bin Talal’s involvement and said in a television interview still on YouTube that Mansour (Don Warden, a black panther founder) had been a patron of Obama’s for years, and that Mansour had contacted him to help get Barry [Obama] into Harvard. Mansour can be found on YouTube acknowledging the long relationship with Obama.
Al Mansour connection to Harvard tuition paid for Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD068xXkCZc the video proof
It is believed that Obama became known to Mansour during Obama’s Occidental College days in LA, California. Don Warden (Mansour) has been a paid recruiter for black nationalists since his Berkeley days. Mansour (Warden) had a radio show on California radio station KPFA. He’s done quite well financially working for Bin Talal, who completed his undergraduate degree at Menlo College in CA and a master’s degree at the University of Syracuse in NY.
Dr. John C. Drew, a grant writing consultant in Laguna Niguel, Calif., tells Newsmax he met Obama in 1980 when Obama was a sophomore at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Drew had just graduated from Occidental and was attending graduate school at Cornell University.
Drew’s then girlfriend, Caroline Boss — now Grauman-Boss — knew Obama because she shared classes with him at Occidental….
During Christmas break, Drew says he was at Grauman-Boss’ home in Palo Alto when Obama came over with Mohammed Hasan Chandoo, his roommate from Pakistan.
“Barack and Hasan showed up at the house in a BMW, and then we went to a restaurant together,” Drew says. “We had a nice meal, and then we came back to the house and smoked cigarettes and drank and argued politics.” For the next several hours, they discussed Marxism.
“He was arguing a straightforward Marxist-Leninist class-struggle point of view, which anticipated that there would be a revolution of the working class, led by revolutionaries, who would overthrow the capitalist system and institute a new socialist government that would redistribute the wealth,” says Drew, who says he himself was then a Marxist.
… In 1981, Obama left Occidental to attend Columbia University. During that year, Obama spent “about three weeks” visiting Chandoo and his family in Karachi, Pakistan, according to the account of Obama spokesman Bill Burton during the campaign.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2450962/posts
Again, I don’t know if any of this is true or not true. I only know that if a Republican sneezes, there’s a media “investigator” looking into communicable diseases within minutes.
The manner in which the serially ignored Stanley Kurtz’ book, shouts out conspiracy.
I know what “fairness” means to me. And, I’ve seen what it means to Marxists.
““We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by.”
This is always the strange way far-left liberals see the world. In their strange world, everything is an “either-or” proposition. In their world, some do really well while everybody else does badly. Whereas in the conservative view of the world, why not have a good economy so that everybody gets a shot at prosperity? The far-left thinks that the only way to achieve that good economy is by heavy government intervention. Conservatives believe that a lot LESS government intervention and far less government regulations is the key to success. The far left thinks that the only way to solve a problem is by spending more money. Conservatives think that spending lots of money caused the problem in the first place. The far left never seems to think that reducing the size of government is a good thing. Conservatives see big government as a horrible thing. And the far left sees your money as their money. Conservatives think your money is YOUR money and that you should keep as much of it as possible.
That is why the election in November is so important. YOU will decide which way you are going to look at life, the far-left way or the conservative way. And trust me, the decision you make will determine how much money you have in your pocket at the end of the day, if indeed it will still be YOUR pocket.
Anytime you get into an argument with a Lefty or anyone foolish enough to have voted for the angry radical socialist racist bigot Obama, recall his “bitter clingers” statement and bottom-line the discussion. So you think Big Government in control of our lives is the solution to all our “problems”? Because that’s where this angry radical socialist racist bigot Obama and the radical socialist “Democrat” party is taking us. Their vision for America is against everything this country was founded upon and stands for.
Libertyship46
Good comment.
The November election is only HALF as important as the Primaries. If we don’t elect the right candidate in the primary, what choice is there in the general election? We would get more of the same old, same old.
Ask yourself, which candidate is different? Newt? NO! Romney? NO! Santorum? NO!
Ron Paul? YES! Then who would make changes?
A deceased friend of mine liked to say that “‘Fair’ is just a sound that humans make.” We who understand and love freedom define fair as “uniform laws that respect our rights and are evenhandedly enforced.” The Left deems fair to mean that “no one shall have anything that not everyone else has.” There can be no middle position, to which everyone will agree, between those definitions.
Whenever the word “fair” occurs in a political discussion, I ask at once: “What do you mean by that?” The answer will tell me whether there’s any point at all in continuing the conversation.
“Fair” in the mind of the Left means Big Government deciding the issue instead of the individual (as the column points out). This is totalitarian, not American.
Years ago, my then teen-aged daughter would wail at me, “but it’s not FAIR!” My stock response? “Get used to it kiddo!” Somebody needed to explain this basic fact of life to Zero when he was a teenager, too. It’s too bad the Boy King never learned that no matter what he tries to do, life will NEVER be fair. And it’s patently unfair to try to make it so.
A “fair” is an event where prize pigs win ribbons. Other than that, the word “fair” has no legitimate meaning.
To Mean Granny
I too told my children that; If life is fair, when is it your turn to clean the bathroom?
What is not fair is saddling this great country with this half witted moronic socialist as a president. He cannot leave fast enough and along with his useful idiot drones pelosi, reid, biden, clinton, shumer, blabbermouth shultz, holder and the rest of these losers.
When you say, “Power will be centralized and absolute”, don’t forget that it also becomes arbitrary, subject, not to the rule of law, but to the whims of whatever bureaucrat happens to be enforcing their version of what the law should be to achieve their version of ‘fairness’.
In Novemeber 2010, Bill Clinton was on Meet the Press and announced that the national divide would be completed by 2050. Obama’s place in our society was decided upon because the black race will trust his leadership, which is socially engineering them out of the south. The northeast is chasing away white people. The writing is on the wall, so can’t we just talk about this openly so that no one is left on the wrong side of the divide? Many people have no clue as to what we are facing – and we all deserve to know the truth so that plans can be made for those wanting to remain American.
Obama said: “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules,”
This is the categorical example of a non-sequitur. It is El Dumbo’s trademark rhetorical tool and I cannot bear to ever listen, let alone read what he says.
Additionally, the self-critiquing required of such a statement, even in its horrid format, is absent. “A shrinking number of people do really well”. OK, I’ll bite. Why is that, exactly? This administration wants to blame banks and mortgage companies and “evil” big-business? Well, the arguments to refute this choice of subjects are too numerous to list but for starters, your administration is hurting business like it’s never been hurt before. Your tactics to hurt it even more with things like the Boeing kerfuffle and GM, just to name two are in direct conflict with your claim.
“…everyone gets a fair shot” OK, well, if you were such a Constitutional scholar, you would be acutely aware that such a framework already exists. All that needs be done is that the laws, as they exist, be upheld.
“Everyone does their fair share”. Hoo-boy. YOu just stepped in it here, pal.
at least 46% of Americans DO NOT PAY TAXES. Who’s not doing their “fair share” here? By your own definition, please. Take your time, think it over.
As has been beaten soundly to death over the past few years, “fairness”, to a national socialist, means to provide the advantage to a select group or groups while taking it away from another. Yet, couldn’t someone say that about GM? Or GE? They control so many billions of dollars…how is that “fair” in the national socialist sense? (rhetorical)
These people from Pelousy, to Dingy Harry, to D’OH-bama and all the rest seem to function poorly and their uptake of fair is badly skewed, to make an understatement. But actually, really…when this know-nothing speaks, he is using the old “tell them what they want to hear, get them all worked up” and then go back into the oval office and do what you want, regardless of what they thought they heard. Screw them. They are nothing but voters who will keep you in office because you play them like a well-tuned fiddle.
I think we can all agree that this ‘fairness’ crap is just a codeword for more ‘soak-the-rich’.
It’s really sad to see a President of the United States acting like a third-world dictator who distracts the populace from their misery caused by his own failings by blaming it on those other people over there.
But what is fair?
If you place a High School Football team on the same field as the New York Giants, it doesn’t matter how level the playing field is. It doesn’t matter if you have computer controlled referees using pinpoint laser meshes to ferret out every possible foul and infraction. It doesn’t matter if you let the High School team inspect every ball, every cleat in every shoe, or every pad and uniform put on by all the players.
The High School Team is going to Lose Every time. Period.
Is that unfair, or just the way it is.
Keep in mind, that over time that High School Team, if the players survive, is going to get better to a point where they start making mincemeat out of other hight school teams, but they just ain’t gonna’ beat the Giants.
That concept is completely lost on Obozo.
To expand on the theme, jd, in Obamatopia, the Giants cannot take the field until the HS team has already run down the field and scored. The Giants will also be prohibited from moving at all once the ball is snapped on the HS team, when they do take the field. The HS team will also have the uprights spread to the width of the end-zone and the Giants will not be permitted to touch any of the HS players during the actual game.
These are the types of nonsensical “rules” and “regulations” that the Obama administration would love to put and is putting on banks, housing, etc.
“Fairness” never enters into the picture at all because it means that they must control the outcome, not the opportunity. We all inherently know this but it makes us just that much more angry that the media and especially the republicans “over there” who do nothing and watch it all happen.
Obama was proposing unfair perverse rules. If the big O wants to try and redefine fairness by clipping speeches from Atlas Shrugged villains- I say bring it on! Let him bring his outrages and do his worst. It will be nice to talk about true fairness and putting an end to people voting themselves free lunches and forcing others to pay for it.
I think O is trying out the false righteous indignation and mock moral argument as an attempt to trump free market empirical claims- who cares how much money is made if it isn’t fair. That may work against the republican establishment, but I’d love to see big O have to debate a flat tax, same rate for everyone, candidate who can school him with real passion and morality.
“fairness” is just the buzz word of the Left. “social justice” is as well (in fact any phrase with the word “justice”, climate justice, food justice, on and on, ad nauseam)
In seeking after power & control & your dependency on them, they are the least fair and least just crowd on the planet.
Now the buzz on the street is increasingly that the United States Constitution, its guarantee of trial by jury, its amendments guaranteeing the citizen’s rights and the limitations on federal power…just doesn’t keep up with the fairness BS demands of the era, just isn’t fair enough.
‘We the People’ Loses Appeal With People Around the World
But the Constitution is out of step with the rest of the world in failing to protect, at least in so many words, a right to travel, the presumption of innocence and entitlement to food, education and health care.
If the Muslim Brotherhood prevails, I’m sure the new Egyptian Constitution will be a model of “fairness”…”Slap on that burka, baby. Show your arms in public and we are entitled to rape you.”
Fairness personified.
Where are all these fair & enlightened hotspots in the world ? Our aged and feeble and ideologically bent Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points to South Africa’s Constitution for countries to model themselves after rather than that old antiquated thing it is her job to interpret.
Maybe she’d offer up Myanmar ? Pakistan? Does Indonesia’s Constitution guarantee free lunches into perpetuity ?
That would make Ruthie happy.
This assault on the United States Constitution is part & parcel of the Left’s agenda and the singularly most important reason that Barack Obama (who told Matt Lauer on Sunday again how the Constitution is a limitation) needs to go.
At the moment, the top one percent pay more than 40 percent of federal taxes. That is certainly disproportionate. Is it fair? Who is to say? And how much more would make it fair? It is also obvious that extortionate rates will drive many out of our tax system as they seek more reasonable rates abroad.
Entire personal fortunes could be confiscated and barely put a dent in Barack’s $5 trillion run up in the debt alone. Let alone the coming up on $16 trillion total.
Barry has said he “doesn’t care” that increasing taxes have actually been shown, historically, to result in lower government revenues (due to dampening of business activity etc.)
He harps and harps on the necessity to tax the rich more in the name of “fairness”.
Well, when you lead with “hope-n-change” you’ve created a tough act to follow. Sounds great. Means whatever the listener thinks it means, as we’ve all discussed endlessly.
BHO and his handlers are seeking a new meme to anchor his campaign, something with a similar means-anything-means-nothing quality. They think they’ve found it with “fairness.” It’s the ultimate it’s-not-your-fault free pass for one portion of the base (you’re entitled) and stick-it-to-the-rich cattle prod for another (cough up more cash).
It has the added appeal that it continues to divide and demonize.
Admirable? No. Clever? Yes. And it just might work.
– says what’s his is his and yours is negotiable.
One more point. In 1979, Milton Friedman appeared on the Phil Donahue show. His observations are timely and timeless, and relate to BHO’s fairness meme:
“The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.”
“If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it’s exactly in the kind of societies that depart from [capitalism and free trade].”
“Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?”
“I think you’re taking a lot of things for granted. Just tell me, where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us? I don’t even trust you to do that.”
Love that Milton Friedman interview, and poor lil’ ole Donahue (a “fairness” freak) just sitting there, bollixed into wonderful silence
It’s Nothing New
Yep, I loved that moment too. Priceless.
From the looks of things Mr. Obama is now expanding his efforts at dividing Americans with his war on Religion.
“Divided We Fall” and the weakening of this country has been Mr. Obama’s objective since childhood.
HEY SHERLOCKS
WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT OUR COUNTRY?
Origin of the Left & the Right
I have often wondered why it is that Conservatives are
called the “right” and Liberals are called the “left.”
By chance I stumbled upon this verse in the Bible:
“The heart of the wise inclines to the right,
but the heart of the fool to the left.”
Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)
Thus sayeth the Lord. Amen.
Can’t get any simpler than that.
Spelling Lesson
The last four letters in American……….I Can
The last four letters in Republican…….I Can
The last four letters in Democrats………Rats
End of lesson. Test to follow in November, 2012
Remember, November is to be set aside as rodent
extermination month.
The problem with the high tax rate for the 1% is that you’d have a hard time finding a rich person that actually pays it. Romney probably pays more taxes than the average millionaire, with all of those generous loopholes and off-shore banking options. If you really want to see class warfare, look what the Republicans are trying to do to unions. Welcome to Walmart!
Terry Ballard, your post contains several misconceptions in a row. To what loopholes do you refer? For instance, the tax rate on capital gains is lower than the top rate on ordinary income but that “tax loophole” is open to every investor regardless of his income. Off-shore banking options? Are you saying that Romney has foreign income he doesn’t pay U.S. taxes on? That isn’t part of the tax code. American taxpayers are obliged to pay U.S. taxes on income from foreign investments.
The decline of union membership down to less than 7% of the private sector work force didn’t happen because of anything any Republicans did. It happened because the American labor unions priced their products beyond the means of everybody else. General Motors got to the point where they were paying more on each car for medical benefits for their UAW employees than the cost of steel for the car. I don’t mind if the company I buy a car from gives its employees liberal medical benefits, but I do not buy a car for that purpose. The unions’ problem isn’t the Republicans. It isn’t non-union employers. It’s the hard-pressed American consumer who just wants his money’s worth and has learned that the union label stands for “poorly made and overpriced.”
Poor deluded lefty fool, there are only two or three states where Republicans have any real interaction with unions. At any given time about half the states have full or near-full collective bargaining concerning wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment, the federal scope of duty. All but a handfull are totally and irredeemably Democrat and owned lock, stock, and barrel by public employee unions. In a Democrat state, collective bargaining with public employees is simply a charade played out between Democrat elected and appointed officials and the unions. If there’s a strike, you can be sure it is already worked out how many days they’ll be out and what they’ll get paid to come back. If a dispute goes to arbitration it is to give cover to the administration for giving the union what it wants.
Those of us who actually know something about collective bargaining were titilated by Comrade Obama carrying on in defense of the slugs in WI when the WI government limited the scope of bargaining, but even with the changes in the law, WI still has a much greater scope of bargaining than does most of the federal government, the people who work for Comrade Obama. Somebody who actually knew what they were doing would have been prepared well in advance and long ago restricted access to the WI capitol to certain hours and certain activities, and the minute those fools stayed one second over the allotted time would have thrown them in jail. Union leaders get amazingly pliable when they’re trying to do business from jail. They also become very agreeable when you stop collecting dues for them. I might not go so far as Indiana did with a right to work initiative, but I appreciated the sentiment; when you have them by the wallet, their heart and mind follows. My perspective is that I don’t like open shops except as a bargaining tool because having an open shop keeps the union slithering around your workforce trying to get people to join and pay their dues and stirring up trouble trying to make themselves look important.
The reality is that when public employees have both full collective bargaining rights and full political rights, they simply become a socialist political party that allies with the Democrats to screw the taxpayers. I’ve cleaned up the mess that union-owned Democrat governments have left behind a couple of times in my career; they wreck the place. They rescind all the rules on hiring, financial management, and procurement. They run off or neuter all the high-level merit system employees, the level just below poltical appointees, and replace them with Democrat hacks and kids. Within a few months the lunatics are in charge of the asylum and the World is safe for Democrats to hire their friends, move money around at will without regard to legislative intentions, buy stuff only from their contributors, give contracts and grants only to their contributors, and steal at will and the Democrat owned media never says a word about it, hasn’t even the slightest curiosity about it. My state is the only unionized state in the union that isn’t teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and it is only because the oil industry is powerful enough to keep the unions from owning the government. If Alaska were to go back to having an economy based on federal transfer payments and washing either others’ clothes we’d be back to being the Peoples’ Republic of Alaska in a couple of years and would be solid Blue.
Having dealt with public employee unions for many years, I have no idea how many times I’ve heard “fair,” “unfair,” “respect,” “social justice,” and all the other lefty buzzwords that usually mean they want something and don’t want to do anything to get it. I used to have a sticker on the bottom of my computer screen at work that said “F&*K FAIR,” until we got a Democrat administration that wanted to be nice to unions. A couple of years after AFSCME took over as representative of our largest group of employees they began to replace their National staff that had been doing negotiation and contract administration with locally hired Business Agents. They ran ads in the papers to recruit. The desired qualifications were pretty nebulous, union BAs are more political jobs than technical, but the one stated most definitely was that the successful applicant “must possess a strong sense of social justice.” That suited us; we were concerned lest they hire somebody who knew something about labor relations.
It always amazes me that people are intimidated by, literally afraid of, union representatives and community organizer types; most are dolts. They bluff and they bully and tell you they’re going to blow your house down if they don’t get what they want, but that only works with people who are either ignorant of dealing with them or who are disposed to give them what they want. It is said that celebrities are people who are famous for being famous. Well, unions and activist groups and leaders are powerful for being thought powerful. Outside the trades and maybe teachers, there isn’t a union in the Country that could keep its majority in the face of a determined employer challenge. Hardly any public employee unions acquired their jurisdiction by organizeing the employees; they were given their units by a Democrat government. These are the sorts of people that surround Obama and Obama is himself one of these sorts; a bully and a blowhard. He won’t have a clue what to do if somebody told him to go f&*k himself. The downside risk is that some of these people have a mean streak, I think Obama does, and when challenged can over-react fiercely. Now to me, since I’m used to dealing with them, that would be my goal; to get him and his minions to react stupidly. That’s really what Alinsky tactics are about; forcing otherwise sane, managerial types to do something really stupid. The key is not reacting to them so they’ll up the ante trying to get you to react and ulitimately will do something stupid that you can just to justify smashing them. Now its one thing to do that sort of thing when the stakes are a job might get shut down for a while or some people might get fired, it is quite another thing to deal with some crazy-assed Alinsky disciple who has the might of the US government behind him; he can make smoke and noise and break things. That said, I think it is worth it to try to provoke him, but, unfortunately, most Republicans are just too damned nice.
Yes, these fairness & union freaks are take no prisoners, play dirty.
Personified by that most frequent White House visitor during Barack’s first two years in office, Andy Stern.
“If we can’t use the power of persuasion, we’ll use the persuasion of power.”
That’s why republicans really need to step up their game and understand the true nature of the down and dirty enemy.
My point is that they’re really not formidable; they’re dirty because they’re allowed to be. They’re powerful because they’re allowed to be powerful.
Yes, I got that, about the formidable, or not.
Obama and his cronies have done very well out of capitalism. So have the big-time professional athletes and entertainers. We don’t hear much about limiting their income or fortunes. Obama, being sadly deficient in the virtue of gratitude, bites the hands that feeds him. Wall Street financed his campaign last time, but not this time. Why? He bites the hands that feed him.
IMO, Obama’s view of America is that all animals should be equal, but that some animals should be more equal than others.
How liberals think
guess your way is the best way don’t make me laugh your a joke
Guess you never passed that GED test, huh?
Here’s a TERRIFIC WSJ op-ed on Obama’s “fairness” — a series of devastating questions the GOP should insist Obama answer, defending his positions.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206980068367936.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h
Excellent, worth reading.
One can only hope the hapless RNC is busily constructing an ad campaign around those very questions.
State Senator Obama 2004 Radio Address Attacks Bush on Dismal Economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w11S552oJBs&fe…
For a site laying claim to “voices from a free America,” you are the whitest bunch of white guys ever! What arrogance!
I didn’t realize there was a melanin questionnaire/feature from PJM prior to posting.
Apparently commenters here sound like the, ‘..typical White person..’ -spoken by our CiC, the ‘Great Uniter’.
Do go into further detail KKG regarding your concept of ‘ignorance’.
Without the fictional ‘racism’ hokum what other rebuttal do you possibly have?
I’d lay off the Uhbama kool-aid, friend. By this time it’s got to be fermented pig swill.
Two points. One is the zero-sum-game myth. Bill Gates being rich hasn’t cost me a dime. In fact, to the extent that Microsoft has stimulated the economy and created wealth, it has indirectly benefited me. Rich people do not get rich at the expense of the poor.
Second, Hayek told us in “The Road to Serfdom” that socialist hijack popular vocabulary and use it to manipulate the public. Only they change the definitions of words. “Fair” means redistribution; “freedom” means freedom from want, not freedom from oppression; “justice” means equal outcomes, not equality under the law. This is an important point to keep in mind – as is most everything else in the book.
Obama Indoctrination of Elementary School Kids on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woItHu67X08&feature=player_embedded
The Liberal War on the Constitution and Religion
The battle launched by Barack Hussein Obama’s administration’s insistence that Catholic institutions violate their collective consciences and church law on artificial birth control has less to do with contraception than with liberal disdain for America’s Constitution.
The ongoing uproar over contraception simply reinforces the disdain shown when our alleged “constitutional scholar” president arrogantly complained to Matt Lauer that Congress was impeding his insatiable lust for power and autocratic rule by performing checks and balances on the executive branch and by his earlier declaration that he would, unconstitutionally, bypass the legislative branch to accomplish his goals.
The president was recently joined by an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in his public contempt for the US Constitution.
Arch-liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared on Egyptian television, praised other national constitutions, but said of ours, “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.” As a member of SCOTUS, Ginsburg is charged with interpreting that 225 year old document yet doesn’t consider it worthy of emulation.
As a reminder to the constitutional scholar . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=12673.)
It is really interesting how Obozo sees things and how conservative see things as well as capitalists see things.
In Obozo world when face book goes public, there will be winners and losers and it won’t be fair. But to capitalists, when facebook goes public there will be tremendous wealth created, and there will be no change to those that haven’t succeeded. It is not a zero sum game as Obozo would have us to believe.