Author: Retired Spook

Can You Guess Who?

Retired Spook15 Comments

I got this idea from a member of the BlogsforVictory Google Group.  I’ve redacted details that would give the answer away.

WITH THE FEDERAL DEBT spiraling out of control, many Americans sense an urgent need to find a political leader who is able to say “no” to spending. Yet they fear that finding such a leader is impossible. Conservatives long for another Ronald Reagan. But is Reagan the right model? He was of course a tax cutter, reducing the top marginal rate from 70 to 28 percent. But his tax cuts—which vindicated supply-side economics by vastly increasing federal revenue—were bought partly through a bargain with Democrats who were eager to spend that revenue. Reagan was no budget cutter—indeed, the federal budget rose by over a third during his administration.

An alternative model for conservatives is [redacted]. President from [redacted], [Redacted] sustained a budget surplus and left office with a smaller budget than the one he inherited. Over the same period, America experienced a proliferation of jobs, a dramatic increase in the standard of living, higher wages, and three to four percent annual economic growth. And the key to this was [redacted] penchant for saying “no.” If Reagan was the Great Communicator, [redacted] was the Great Refrainer.
Following [redacted], the federal debt stood ten times higher than before the [redacted], and it was widely understood that the debt burden would become unbearable if interest rates rose. At the same time, the top income tax rate was over 70 percent, veterans were having trouble finding work, prices had risen while wages lagged, and workers in Seattle, New York, and Boston were talking revolution and taking to the streets. The [redacted] administration had nationalized the railroads for a time at the end of the [redacted], and had encouraged stock exchanges to shut down for a time, and Progressives were now pushing for state or even federal control of water power and electricity. The business outlook was grim, and one of the biggest underlying problems was the lack of an orderly budgeting process: Congress brought proposals to the White House willy-nilly, and they were customarily approved.

The Republican Party’s response in the [redacted] election was to campaign for smaller government and for a return to what its presidential candidate, [redacted], dubbed “normalcy”—a curtailing of government interference in the economy to create a predictable environment in which business could confidently operate. [Redacted], a Massachusetts governor who had gained a national reputation by facing down a Boston police strike—“There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time,” he had declared—was chosen to be [redacted] running mate. And following their victory, [redacted] inaugural address set a different tone from that of the outgoing [redacted] administration (and from that of the Obama administration today): “No altered system,” [redacted] said, “will work a miracle. Any wild experiment will only add to the confusion. Our best assurance lies in efficient administration of our proven system.”

One of [redacted] first steps was to shepherd through Congress the Budget and Accounting Act of [redacted], under which the executive branch gained authority over and took responsibility for the budget, even to the point of being able to impound money after it was budgeted. This legislation also gave the executive branch a special budget bureau—the forerunner to today’s Office of Management and Budget—over which [redacted] named a flamboyant Brigadier General, [redacted], as director. Together they proceeded to summon department staff and their bosses to semiannual meetings at Continental Hall, where [redacted] cajoled and shamed them into making spending cuts. In addition, [redacted] pushed through a tax cut, lowering the top rate to 58 percent; and in a move toward privatization, he proposed to sell off naval petroleum reserves in Wyoming to private companies.

Is there any doubt that history repeats itself?  Read the whole piece here, and pray that another [redacted] comes along soon.

Patriotism, Texas and Chris Kyle

Retired Spook18 Comments

The following letter was written by the mother of a SEAL compatriot of Chris Kyle’s and was included in a military newsletter I regularly receive. The sentiments encapsulated in it are the reason why the Left will NEVER triumph in America; they simply don’t understand the principles of duty and honor, nor do they comprehend the power and determination of those among us who DO understand and subscribe to such principles.

I just wanted to share with you all that out of a horrible tragedy we were blessed by so many people. Chris was Derek’s teammate through 10 years of training and battle. They both suffer/suffered from PTSD to some extent and took great care of each other because of it. 2006 in Ramadi was horrible for young men that never had any more aggressive physical contact with another human than on a Texas football field. They lost many friends.
Chris became the armed services number #1 sniper of all time. Not something he was happy about, other than the fact that in so doing, he saved a lot of American lives. Three years ago, his wife Taya asked him to leave the SEAL teams as he had a huge bounty on his head by Al Qaeda. He did and wrote the book The American Sniper. 100% of the proceeds from the > book went to two of the SEAL families who had lost their sons in Iraq. That was the guy Chris was. He formed a company in Dallas to train military, police and I think firemen as far as protecting themselves in difficult situations. He also formed a foundation to work with military people suffering from PTSD. Chris was a giver not a taker. He along with a friend and neighbor, Chad Littlefield, were murdered trying to help a young man that had served 6 months in Iraq and claiming to have PTSD.

Now I need to tell you about all of the blessings. Southwest Airlines flew in any SEAL and their family from any airport they flew into free of charge. The employees donated buddy passes and one lady worked for 4 days without much of a break to see that it happened. Volunteers were at both airports in Dallas to drive them to the hotel. The Marriott Hotel reduced their rates to $45 a night and cleared the hotel for only SEALs and family.  The Midlothian, Tx. Police Department paid the $45 a night for each room. I would guess there were about 200 people staying at the hotel. 100 of them SEALs. Two large buses were chartered (unknown donor paid the bill) to transport people to the different events and they also had a few rent cars (donated). The police and secret service were on duty 24 hours during the stay at our hotel.

At the house the Texas DPS parked a large motor home in front to block the view from reporters. It remained there the entire 5 days for the SEALs to congregate in and all to use the restroom so as not to have to go in the house. Taya, their two small children and both sets of parents were staying in the home. Only a hand full of SEALs went into the home as they had different duties and meetings were held sometimes on a hourly basis. It was a huge coordination of many different events and security.  Derek was
assigned to be a pall bearer, to escort Chris’ body when it was transferred from Midlothian Funeral Home to Arlington Funeral Home and to be with Taya. Tough job. Taya seldom came out of her bedroom. The home was full with people from the church and other family members that would come each day to help. I spent one morning in a bedroom with Chris’ mom and the next morning with Chad Littlefield’s parents (the other man murdered with
Chris). Tough job.

Nolan Ryan sent his cooking team, a huge grill and lots of steaks, chicken and hamburgers. They set up in the front yard and fed people all day long.  The 200 SEALs and their family. The next day a local BBQ restaurant set up a buffet in front of the house and fed all once again. Food was plentiful and all were taken care of. The family’s church kept those inside the house well fed.

Jerry Jones, the man everyone loves to hate, was a rock star. He donated use of Cowboy Stadium for the services as it was determined that so many wanted to attend. The charter buses transported us to the stadium on Monday at 10:30. Every car, bus, motorcycle was searched with bomb dogs and police. I am not sure if kooks were making threats trying to make a name for themselves or if so many SEALs in one place was a security
risk…I don’t know. We willing obliged. No purses ino the stadium! We were taken to The Legends room high up and a large buffet was available.  That was about 300 people. We were growing. A Medal of Honor recipient was there, lots of secret service and police and Sarah Palin and her husband. She looked nice, this was a very formal military service.  The service started at 1:00 and when we were escorted onto the field I was shocked. We heard that about 10,000 people had come to attend also. They were seated in the stadium seats behind us. It was a beautiful and emotional service. Bagpipe and drum corps were wonderful and the A&M men’s choir stood through the entire service and sang right at the end. We were all in tears.

The next day was the 200 mile procession from Midlothian, Tx. to Austin for burial. It was a cold, drizzly, windy day, but the people were out. We had dozens of police motorcycles riders, freedom riders 5 chartered buses and lots of cars. You had to have a pass to be in the procession and still it was huge. Two helicopters circled the procession with snipers sitting out the side door for protection. It was the longest funeral procession ever in the state of Texas. People were everywhere. The entire route was shut down ahead of us, the people were lined up on the side of the road the entire way. Firemen down on one knee, police officers holding their hats over their hearts, children waving flags, veterans saluting as we went by.  Every bridge had fire trucks with large flags displayed from their tall ladders….people all along the entire 200 miles standing in the cold weather. It was so heartwarming. Taya rode in the hearse with Chris’ body so Derek rode the route with us. I was so grateful to have that time with him.

The services were at Texas National Cemetery. Very few are buried there and you have to apply to get in. It is like people from Civil War, Medal of Honor winners a few from the Alamo and all the historical people of Texas. It was a nice service and the Freedom Riders surrounded the outside of the entire cemetery to keep the crazy church people from Kansas that protests at military funerals away from us. Each SEAL put his Trident
(metal SEAL badge) on the top of Chris’ casket one at a time. A lot hit it in with one blow, Derek was the only one to take 4 taps to put his in and it was almost like he was caressing it as he did it.  Another tearful moment.

After the service the governor’s wife, Anita Perry, invited us to the governor’s mansion. She stood at the door and greeted each of us individually and gave each of the SEALs a coin of Texas (she was a sincere, compassionate, and gracious hostess). We were able to tour the ground floor and then went into the garden for beverages and BBQ. So many of the team guys said that after they get out they are moving to Texas. They remarked that they had never felt so much love and hospitality. The charter buses then took the guys to the airport to catch their returning flights. Derek just now called and after a 20 hours flight he is back in his spot, in a dangerous land on the other side of the world, protecting
America.

I just wanted to share with the events of a quite an emotional, but blessed week.

Allocation of Wealth

Retired Spook40 Comments

On his radio show this morning Glenn Beck played a clip of Iowa Senator Tom Harkin talking about wealth allocation.

“First of all, I want to disagree with those who say we have a spending problem. Everyone keeps saying we have a spending problem,” he said during a discussion on the Budget Control Act of 2011 (which includes the across-the-board spending cuts known as “sequestration”) .

“And when they talk about that, it’s like there’s an assumption that somehow we as a nation are broke,” he added.

Sen. Harkin, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, continued:

Well look at it this way, we’re the richest nation in the history of the world. We are now the richest nation in the world.

We have the highest per capita income of any major nation. That kind of begs the question, doesn’t it? If we’re so rich, why are we so broke? Is it a spending problem?

No, it’s because we have a misallocation of capital, a misallocation of wealth.

It sounded like a great topic for a thread, because, IMO, an understanding of how wealth is allocated represents one of the fundamental differences between Conservatives and Liberals.

So, just exactly how should wealth be allocated?  Should it be the responsibility of government to allocate wealth, as President Obama has maintained?  In a society where the government is the final arbiter of wealth allocation, who is better off, the average citizen or those in charge of allocating the wealth?  Is there, or has there ever been, a society where government allocation of wealth has resulted in a high level of freedom and prosperity?  Are there ANY SOCIALISTS SUCCESS STORIES? 

Since the advent of LBJ’s Great Society and the War on Poverty, trillions of dollars of wealth have been re-allocated, and yet the poverty rate is the same as it was 3 decades ago, and only a couple percentage points lower than it was a half century ago.  It reminds me of one of my favorite Winston Churchill quotes:

“The vice of capitalism is that there is an unequal share of the blessings; the virtue of socialism is that there is an equal share of the misery.”

The other day Watson mentioned that capitalism has been very good to him, and yet he supports a system and a president whose ultimate goal is to destroy capitalism.  That seems to me to be a major disconnect.  Perhaps Watson can explain the rationale behind his position.

 

Where Is Your Line In The Sand?

Retired Spook164 Comments

I suspect almost all of us have a line beyond which we don’t want to see government “progress”. Clearly we haven’t reached that line for virtually anyone except an occasional fringe kook. Otherwise we’d be in the midst of a civil war or, at the very least, see the rise of violent, radical groups like the Weather Underground or the Symbionese Liberation Army reminiscent of the 60’s and 70’s. And while the number of organized militias has increased 7-fold since Obama was first elected, only a couple have engaged in any activity that’s made the news. More mainstream groups like Oath Keepers are pretty low key, and, unless you’re a member, you’ve probably not seen them mentioned on the news.

So clearly the vast majority of people, while we may complain in letters to the editor, calls to talk radio, and comments on blogs, are apparently not really all that upset with the status quo in the country right now. And yet I believe everyone has a breaking point, a point beyond which they say “no mas” (A little Spanish lingo for those of you in Rio Linda).

So, some questions for our readers: where is your line in the sand? If you have a progression of lines, what is your response at each point? If the line is an action by your state, do you move to another state? Do you try to go “off the grid”? Do you simply move from a city to a rural area? At what point do you openly resist, either as an individual or as part of a group? Is there any principle that is so important to you that you’d risk your life to defend it?  Does anyone think it’s possible that the Progressives’ incremental and gradual approach will continue to succeed until we devolve into totalitarianism? If you’re a Progressive, what is it that you’re “progressing” toward? I’m guessing that even Progressives have a point beyond which they don’t want to see government go.  If history shows us anything, it’s that a progression of power into the hands of a central government always ends the same way.  Are you one of those “this time it will be different” people, or have you not thought that far ahead?

And finally, looking back at the last century of Progressivism, does anyone think it’s possible to reverse some of the lines we’ve already crossed, or is simply not possible to put that toothpaste back in the tube?

I’d like to see some comments from Progressives on this thread, even those who have been banned or routinely have their posts deleted.  You have my word that, as long as you stay on topic and stay civil, your posts will not be deleted.

 

Federal Legislative Criteria

Retired Spook65 Comments

This is a idea I’ve been kicking around for a while. Has anyone here ever asked his or her Congressman or Senators what criteria they rely on when they write a bill, co-sponsor a bill or vote on a bill? If you’ve ever read a House or Senate bill, particularly one of the uber-long and complicated ones like The Affordable Care Act or Dodd-Frank, you’ve probably wondered if there are any criteria at all, other than to make it so long and complicated that no one will or can read it. I’ll bet, without a great deal of effort, we here at B4V can come up with a comprehensive list of criteria that we could forward to Congress in the form of an open letter.

Number one, IMO, would be, what is the goal of the legislation, and is the means to achieve that goal allowed by the Constitution?

Second: do the projected benefits outweigh the projected costs? (ie. can we afford it?)

Third: Has the issue been addressed before, and, if so, what was faulty about previous legislation that prevented it from solving the problem? IOW, is it a new idea, or has it been tried before?

Fourth: will the proposed legislation duplicate any existing program/s (think the dozens of federal jobs and job training programs currently in existence)?

Fifth: is there a sunset provision in the bill in the event that (a) it doesn’t achieve the stated goal, or (b) it does achieve the stated goal?

Well, I think you get the idea. Everyone feel free to chip in. I have a feeling we can come up with a very long list, most of which will come as a complete and utter surprise to our lawmakers.

Expanding Middle Class?

Retired Spook15 Comments

There’s an interesting article in the on-line edition of the Washington Post this afternoon. Another in a long line of election post-mortems, but citing a figure that I’ve not seen or heard before:

Romney won voters earning between $50,000 and $100,0000 by 52 percent to 46 percent. That’s less than what Bush got in 2004 (he won that group by 12) but they were 28 percent of the electorate in 2012 and just 18 percent electorate in 2004.

I had to read that a couple time to make sure I was reading it right.  In an economy that virtually everyone admits is the worst recovery from a recession since WW2, the number of people who have moved into the upper middle class has increased by over 55%.  And half as many (percentage-wise) of these upwardly mobile Americans voted for Romney as voted for Bush in 2004.  That made zero sense to me until I thought back to my response to Canadian Observer in the previous thread.  Given that a single mother of 3 making minimum wage has as much disposable income as a married couple with 2 kids making $60,000 a year, that puts a lot more Americans (and Obama voters) in that $50,000 to $100,000 demographic.  There’s probably another explanation, right?

Avoiding the Fiscal Cliff

Retired Spook42 Comments

Well, the agenda media is tripping over itself speculating on how Congress and the President will avoid the fiscal cliff, and what the ramifications are if they do (or don’t).

An on-line AP article today makes some of the most ludicrous statements and assertions I’ve seen in a while, illustrating the fact that they haven’t got a clue as to what’s going to happen — or why.

President Barack Obama and leaders of the lame-duck Congress may be just weeks away from shaking hands on a deal to avert the dreaded “fiscal cliff.” So it’s natural to wonder: If they announce a bipartisan package promising to curb mushrooming federal deficits, will it be real?

Come on, now — this is Washington D.C. where perception is reality, and the MSM is all about creating perception.

Obama and top lawmakers could produce an agreement that takes a serious bite out of the government’s growing $16 trillion pile of debt and puts it on a true downward trajectory.

On what planet could (or would) they do that?  Certainly not this one.  Even during the Clinton administration when the budget was supposedly “balanced”, the debt never went down year on year.  If they taxed the top 2% at 100%, they couldn’t even erase the current deficit, much less “take a serious bite” out of the debt.

Or they might reach an accord heading off massive tax increases and spending cuts that begin to bite in January — that’s the fiscal cliff — while appearing to be getting tough on deficits through painful savings deferred until years from now, when their successors might revoke or dilute them.

Now that sounds more like what we’re accustomed to from our political class.

Historically, Congress and presidents have proven themselves capable of either.

Not recently.  Since 1961 the debt has done nothing but increase.  In all fairness, the biggest jumps came during the administrations of Ronald Reagan ($2 trillion) and George W. Bush ($5 trillion).  But Obama has already exceeded Bush’s total and is likely to exceed that combined $7 trillion well before the midpoint of his second term.

Passing a framework next month that sets deficit-cutting targets for each of the next 10 years would be seen as a sign of seriousness. But look for specifics. An agreement will have a greater chance of actually reducing deficits if it details how the savings would be divided between revenue increases and cuts in federal programs, averting future fights among lawmakers over that question.

Say what?  Can anyone read that and not laugh?

Better yet would be including a fast-track process for passing next year’s tax and spending bills if they meet the savings targets so they can whisk through Congress without the possibility of a Senate filibuster, in which 41 of the 100 senators could kill a measure they dislike.

Is that the same Senate that hasn’t passed a budget in 3-1/2 years?

Raising money from higher rates, closing loopholes or a combination of the two would create real revenue for the government.

As opposed to what? Fake revenue?

The problem is many tax deductions and credits , such as for home mortgages and the value of employer-provided health insurance, are so popular that enacting them into law over objections from the public and lobbyists would be extremely difficult.

D’ya think?

With the price tags of tax and spending laws typically measured over a decade, delaying the implementation date can distort the projected impact of a change on people and the government’s debt.

But it does give the perception that they’re doing something.

Even more questionable are assumptions that overhauling tax laws will boost economic activity and thus produce large new revenues for the government. Many Republicans and ideologically conservative economists contend that’s the case, but most economists say there is no sound way to estimate how much revenue can be generated from strengthening the economy by revamping the tax system. Many believe the amount is modest.

Well then, we are just fluked!

Savings that come from weeding out waste, fraud and abuse, which sounds good but are difficult to find, or rely on one-time sales of federal assets should be treated with suspicion.

Of course — there’s no waste, fraud or abuse in the federal budget.

Deep cuts that take effect in the future, say after Obama leaves office in 2017, might be better than imposing them now and hurting an already weak economy by reducing spending.

Now were talkin’

Going “FORWARD”, What Positions Favor Progressives?

Retired Spook187 Comments

This post originated a couple threads back with Cluster offering the following challenge:

“Bring it on liberals. There is not one position in your favor and I look forward to bashing you about the head for the next four years.”

One of our resident Leftist Useful Idiots, thetruthshallsetyoufree, responded with:

Except for all those positions that favored liberals on election day, of course. Good point.

JR responded with:

Small-minded as you are, TruthSSYF, it’s clear you fail to see the irony in that. Absent mass forced reeducation camps, the only thing this election will result in is death and despair. And there are those of us who, if it’s the last thing we do, will see to it that you and those who share your views will be on the receiving end of that paradigm. I don’t think you have the slightest grasp of what lies ahead, but it ain’t gonna be pretty. It is gonna be fun to watch, though.

And I responded with:

Not really a good point, Truthie, as JR points out. Besides winning the presidential election and increasing the Donk majority in the Senate, what positions on November 6th favored Liberals? No President in the last 75 years has been re-elected with the unemployment rate as high as it is — and it’s going higher. No other President has been re-elected with economic growth as weak as it is since they began keeping such statistics in 1930, and Obama’s policies will ensure that it’s only going to get weaker. No other President has been re-elected with the right track/wrong track numbers so stacked against him. The number of GOP governors (30) is at a 12-year high. The GOP-controlled House still controls the purse strings. I haven’t spoken to a single Conservative since the election whose resolve has been anything but strengthened.

Other than free contraceptives and free abortions, what, pray tell, does a second Obama term offer anyone except those with their hands out? As JR alludes to, our side still has most of the guns, and the U.S. military will never, I repeat, NEVER side with Obama. And if you think that Obama’s cute little Kiddie Corps is going to be anything other than cannon fodder, you’re more delusional that I thought.

This exchange, probably close to the end of a dead thread got me to thinking; is there anything that really favors the Progressive agenda going “forward”?  Do Progressives now believe they can just do what they want the next 4 years without repercussions?  The House of Representatives does still hold the purse strings, but what if Obama continues to just bypass the House with executive orders?  Will the nearly 60 million people who voted against him just lay down and do nothing?  What, if any, policies will Obama pursue going “forward” that will result in more liberty and more prosperity?

Update: I’m not getting any takers on the final question of the post, and, admittedly, it asks for someone to have a crystal ball.  So let me rephrase it: what policies going “forward” would you like to see Obama pursue that you believe will have a positive effect on liberty and prosperity?

Wanting To Take A Swing At Someone Is Racist?

Retired Spook14 Comments

RICORUN DISCLAIMER — I, RETIRED SPOOK, DID NOT WRITE THIS.  THIS POST WAS WRITTEN BY AMAZONA WHO ASKED ME TO PUBLISH IT FOR HER.

Picking up on the theme of the Lawrence O’Donnell video posted by Cluster in the previous thread, The Huffington Post accurately reported a comment made by Tagg Romney after Tuesday’s debate:

Mitt Romney’s eldest son weighed in on the second presidential debate on Wednesday, joking that the debate’s contentious nature made him want to “take a swing” at President Obama.

During an interview with North Carolina radio host Bill LuMave, Tagg Romney said that hearing the president call his father a liar made him want to “jump out of [his] seat and … rush down to the debate stage and take a swing at him.”

He continued: “But you know you can’t do that because, well first because there’s a lot of Secret Service between you and him, but also because this is the nature of the process, they’re going to do everything they can do to try to make my dad into someone he’s not. We signed up for it. We’ve gotta kinda sit there and take our punches and then send them right back the other way.”

A young man felt defensive of his father after seeing his father called a liar on national television, and joked that his emotional response was to “take a swing at him”. This is not a story.

Yet David Sirota, a Denver Liberal, claims it is, and has done his best to make it a story. Worse, to make it story not about a man joking about an impulse, but about an entire landscape of alleged racism.

Racism? But of course.

Sirota has a radio show in Denver, Rundown, in which he and conservative Michael Brown offer points of view from both sides of the political aisle. As the spokesman for the Left, Sirota explains that this comment could not have any foundation OTHER than racism, and on the radio show Thursday (during a segment when Brown was not there to insert a touch of sanity into the proceedings) he expounded on this at great length.

I listen to the show sometimes, and have so far found Sirota to be rational and inoffensive as he has explained his Liberal perspective on many topics. But this week he not only veered wildly from this approach to political news, he devoted about half an hour to his insistence that Tagg Romney was coming from a position of what he repeatedly called “white privilege”. He lied, and he invented wild-eyed theories about what would have happened if a black man had said this about a white candidate.

The lies: That Tagg Romney had “fantasized” about doing harm to the president, and that he had said he wanted to “punch him in the face”.

He repeated the claim that the young Romney had been “fantasizing” about this horrible act of violence, implying that Romney had engaged in an ongoing fantasy and had not just spontaneously described his frustration at watching his father attacked by using a very mild metaphor of “taking a swing at” the attacker. Sirota not only repeatedly, insistently, characterized this as a desire to engage in real violence, as a desire to inflict harm on the President, but as a “fantasy” of Romney’s.

In fleeting moments of what I can only consider inadvertent honesty, he did use the word “impulse” a couple of times, but always returned to the theme of “fantasizing” about doing harm to the President.

He also claimed that Tagg Romney had elaborated that he “wanted to punch the President in the face”.

He repeatedly identified Tagg Romney as being a major spokesman for the entire Romney campaign, trying desperately to link Mitt Romney to this overwrought portrayal of seething rage and elaborate fantasies of violence against the President. It was quite shameful.

Not content to lie about what Romney said or a wholly imagined “fantasy”, Sirota spun even more wildly into typical Leftist rhetoric, expanding this comment into an elaborate explanation and condemnation of what he called “white privilege”, going on at length about his claim that this stemmed from a callous assumption that privileged whites can say anything they want to or about black people. The convoluted effort to make this a racial matter would have been funny, if it had not been such an illustration of the toxicity of the far Left and its irrational obsession with branding everything said by a conservative as coming from a well of racial hatred.

And then Sirota elaborated even more, repeatedly claiming that if Obama had a son who made this kind of comment about a white opponent, it would result in a “race war”. He was apparently quite impressed with this phrasing, as he repeated it several times.

I originally thought to just write this rant off as a Left-leaning commentary that got out of control, but Sirota mentioned that emails were already coming in, and was quite smug about generating such opposition to this outrageous statements. And then he put them in writing, in an article in Salon.  So this was not just a Bidenesque blurting of poorly considered emotion. It is a true and accurate representation of the beliefs of a spokesman for the Left, one who identifies himself as such in his radio show bio, whose very presence on this show is as one giving the point of view of the Left.

I mention it because it is a sign that these bizarre distortions of fact into a stew of lies, accusations, and outright insanity are not limited to the fringes of Leftist lunacy, but are mainstream Left. Sirota has been a voice of moderate, rational, Leftist philosophy, and to see him fly so far off the rails, into such a detailed and emphatic racist temper tantrum, with such nasty accusations that spiraled from attacking Tagg Romney to trying to implicate his father and the whole campaign in the invented race-based issue to substituting an invented “fantasy” for a spontaneous comment to wild-eyed assertions of out-and-out “race wars” if the racial identities were reversed, made me realize how pervasive and deep-seated this vicious projection of so many vile characteristics is, and what a major component of Leftist philosophy it is.

Sirota never questioned his assumptions. He never once took a breath and examined what he had been saying and tried to sort out what was real from what had bubbled up from his own belief system and world view. He just freely intertwined his own bigotries with the simple comment by Tagg Romney, and created a whole scenario, in which the actual comment played such a minor role it was lost in the hate-based hysteria of claims of violent fantasies and race wars and white privilege.

I think the most toxic heritage of the last four years will be the creation of sanctioned hatred and racism. I believe that prior to the callous decision of the Left to create, nurture, encourage and incorporate claims of racial hatred and to apply this to every perception of every word and action of the political opposition, this kind of seething rage was limited to the lunatic fringes of the movement. But it is now so mainstream in the Left that it has become the default response to anything any conservative says, about pretty much anything. We, as a nation, can recover from economic disaster, and with the right leadership we can deal with threats from our enemies. But I think it may take generations to heal the wounds created by using race as a weapon to turn people against each other, to brand people as morally inferior, to spawn hatred and distrust and even violence.

I understand that the Left’s use of race in the despicable ways they do has the added advantage, in addition to that of Divide and Conquer, of providing to those who use it a short cut to the Higher Moral Ground—-by applying these vile characteristics to others, they can assume moral superiority, without actually DOING anything to justify it. But the harm done to the nation is frightening.

Economic Growth

Retired Spook29 Comments

This AP article is at the top of my home page this morning, and, after reading it, this little light went on in my head about the main difference between the approach to government by Obama and Romney. Actually, it goes back to a comment I made the other day about the relationship between economic growth and employment. Obama believes government can create jobs, and actually claims his policies have done so. But there can be no meaningful private sector job growth without economic growth. In each of the last 3 years economic growth has been slower than the previous year, and yet, according to the BLS, unemployment has declined from 10.1% to 7.8%. That’s sort of like a college student telling his parents that his grade point average has gone from a 2.5 to a 3.0, but he’s only attended half of his classes. It’s just not believable.

Now are there things that government can do to affect economic growth? You bet, and our lack of economic growth is largely due to uncertainty in the market place caused by things governments have done over the last 4 years. And no amount of stimulus or QE infinity can erase the negative effects of bad fiscal, monetary and regulatory policy.  Government can’t just say to a private company: here’s some money — go hire someone.  The purpose of business is not to provide jobs.  Business exists to make money, and employees are nothing more than a by-product of a successful business.  Progressive Democrats (I know — redundant), by and large, don’t seem to be able to grasp this simple concept.  A President Romney may not be able to do any better, but a growing number of people think he couldn’t do any worse.

I know we have business people who frequent this blog — I’m one myself.  Let’s have a discussion about the circumstances under which you’ve hired people, how government actions, tax policy and regulations affect your business, and what changes a President Romney could make that would have a positive effect on the growth of your business.