Dystopia – Part Deux

Cluster64 Comments

A few days ago, Leo wrote an excellent piece on the radical nature of Obama’s worldview and politics, which is, and has been ignored by too many people, chief among them, our supposedly objective media. In fact the liberal media has yet to do their job and vet Obama, ask the difficult questions, or even hold him accountable. Last week, David Gregory attacked Sen. McCain for having the gall to say that there are still unanswered questions surrounding the Benghazi attack. Think about that. A member of the media was actually defending the administration and questioning a Senator who was telling that reporter that there are unanswered questions surrounding the death of a US Ambassador. Shouldn’t the reporter be asking those questions? What has happened to our media? The deference the liberal media has given to Obama is borderline criminal in my opinion. What ever happened to “speaking truth to power”?

The liberal ideological brand of Barack Obama would have us believe that adding layers of government bureaucracies will reduce costs, that increasing someone’s taxes will enhance their chances for prosperity, that restricting personal choices increases ones liberties, that demonizing certain demographics actually unites us, and that apologizing for America’s arrogance strengthens our positions abroad. All of which defy common sense, all of which have failed and failed repeatedly and yet all of which go unreported by our liberal mainstream media. Sadly, the liberal media has abandoned their journalistic integrity in favor of supporting a President that shares their ideology and not enough people yet have discovered that truth.

Case in point is another current political issue that the media is letting the President off the hook on. The sequester. Here’s Obama just last November:

“Already some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My message to them is simple: No, I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one”

Yet just two days ago, after his million dollar vacation in Florida, the President said that the sequester cuts would result in economic calamity and again laid the blame at the feet of the republicans. And not one reporter, not one, in the liberal media has had the presence of mind to report on the fact that Obama supported the cuts just a few months prior. For the most part, we no longer have an honest media and they are as much responsible for the decline of America as Barack Obama is.

Scare Mongering the Sequester

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Twitchy has collected a bit of Democrat scare-mongering regarding the sequester – the best was Rangel’s claim that 2,100 food inspectors would be thrown out of work.  My first question was:  we have more than 2,100 of them?  Rangel wants to know if we want to worry about the food on our table?  My attitude:  meh…properly cooked food is just about zero risk, at all events, and even without the inspectors its not like the food producers will suddenly go, “oh, goody, now we can poison people with food!”.  There is an indisputable fact to place before the American people here:  some how or another, we didn’t all die before food inspectors came along.  Muddling through without the Nanny State, those who provide food for the market managed to divine that their best bet was to provide good, safe food because that meant your customers stayed alive and came back the next day to buy some more.

Now, just why are our Democrats so hyped up about this?  The real reason seems to me that they are fearful that if real cuts are done – and while the sequester is a teeny, tiny little cut which won’t actually reduce our fiscal peril, they are real cuts – then if death and destruction don’t result, the argument for more cuts will become overwhelming.  Democrats are desperately afraid that their license to steal might soon be revoked – that the American people will figure out that about half what we spend is just payoffs to Democrat constituencies.  And so they will keep banging the drum saying that we’re all going to die if the Sequester (Obamaquester – because it was his idea, after all) goes through.

Exit question:  will all this Democrat whining megaphoned by the by-lined Democrats in the MSM cause the GOP to cave?  So far, it doesn’t appear it will – but never underestimate the Congressional GOP’s ability to wilt under pressure…we shall have to see.

UPDATE:  The article has it as a growing alliance between the RINOs and the Democrats.  Me?  Nope; its just the Ruling Class taking the mask off.  It is an us vs them fight – the people vs the powerful, with our biggest problem is that a large number of the people don’t realize how badly they are being screwed.  Yet.  Matters are being clarified and once we start campaigning in the “blue” areas, the lines will be drawn.

Dystopia–In His Own Words.

Leo Pusateri15 Comments

Just prior to the 2008 elections, Barack Obama boldly stated,

“We are 5 days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America” (October 30, 2008)

Many among my conservative friends took that to be so much fluff; pretty much liberal boilerplate consistent with his whole “Hope and Change” campaign message.  Given, however, Obama’s background, cutting his teeth with the radical leftists/communists of his day (i.e., Frank Marshall Davis, Bernadine Dorn, Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright) I believe I was one of the relative few that took him at his word.  Unlike most of America, conservatives such as myself and others who actually took the time to vet Obama, knew that background and worldview mattered, and that Obama’s past gave more than a glimpse of how he intended to govern in the present.

When Obama uttered those words, “.. fundamentally transform America” I knew he meant it. It was Obama himself who stated (emphases added),

“As radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical.  It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least, as it’s been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the States can’t do to you; says what the Federal Government can’t do to you, but doesn’t state what the Federal government or State Government must do on your behalf.”  (Barack Obama, June 18, 2001).

There is no question that Barack Obama was unhappy with his perception of unequal distribution of wealth that America so unfairly championed, and that he wanted to transform this nation into something more ‘equitable’ in his eyes.  The question was how, and to what extent.  Just how does one “fundamentally”  transform a nation whose very basis for existence is freedom, itself?  The only feasible answer is to transform that already-free nation, into a nation with fewer freedoms.  Given Dinesh D’Souza’s brilliant insights as to Obama’s worldview engendered by his past, one knew that Obama’s absolute contempt for what he saw as America’s unequal distribution of wealth would result in his promoting policies that would necessarily stifle economic growth.   Obama’s America would no longer be one of unbridled economic opportunity; rather, America would be a nation of egalitarian outcomes, regardless of effort; to coin a phrase, to each, according to his needs; from each, according to his means.  

As a means of bringing about this transformation, America could no longer be a free nation.  No where as free, at least, as it was at the time of he assumed his presidency.  Liberties would need to be forsaken to bring about his vision of utopia.  The free market system would need to be reined in, and done so in no small measure.   Obama would have four years, eight at most, to make this happen.  This transformation would need to be done quickly, and in a big way.

Enter Obamacare, America’s first stop on its train ride to Utopia. Against the wishes of 60-70 percent of Americans, and without the vetting of congressional legislators who rammed through the legislation, the United States Federal Government took control of a full one-seventh of the American economy, which had the net effect of driving up the cost of health care for all involved,  taking away freedom of choice, relegating freedom of conscience incompatible with the party line to irrelevancy, while at the same time having the no-doubt intended effect of casting a chilling pall on America’s ability to sustain economic growth and prosperity.  For those who wish to argue regarding this latter point, how better to right the wrongs of the perceived injustice of unequally-distributed wealth than to stifle the engine that creates such wealth?

As I’ve said, Obamacare is but stop one on America’s train ride to Obama’s Dystopia.  Obama’s seeming assault on everything traditional America has held dear for centuries appears to have taken on epidemic proportions.  Remember- Obama only has three and three-quarter years left.  Those who haven’t yet felt the pinch of his “transformations,” most likely have not yet realized that they, too, have been pinched.   Obama’s willing media accomplices can only cover for him for so long before a critical mass of Americans, admittedly as dull as many of them are, will start to put two-and-two together and finally determine that the hopey-changey unicorn jockey they voted for may actually have had something to do with the plight in which they suddenly find themselves.

Then what?

When the critical mass of Americans finally wake up one morning, to find that they have been played as chumps, they are liable to get a bit–shall we say, testy. When this inevitability finally does come home to roost, The TEA party protests that grew out of Rick Santelli’s historic February, 2009 rant will no doubt look like a series of school pep assemblies.   Such civil unrest would certainly be difficult to quell, and will no doubt be yet another bump in the tracks on the way to Obama’s Dystopian dream.

What to do, what do do? You can’t just sick the military after the troublemakers. Well, you could, I suppose, but then you risk pissing off your fellow travelers who have had a history of contempt for men and women in uniform.

What to do??

Since, at least philosophy- and policy-wise, one can take Obama at his word, one may get a clue as to Obama’s plans by again, studying his own non-TelePrompter inspired rhetoric:

“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set.  We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”   -Barack Obama, July, 2008.

Yeah- remember that phrase?  Neither did a lot of other people.  Like the rest of Obama’s sordid past and rhetoric that if brought to the light of day would have rendered his election impossible, The media (true to their sycophantic nature) pretty much glossed over that little tidbit.  A powerful Civilian security force. Remind you of anyone?

So when you see articles like this, or like this, or like this, and then think, aww–Leo–take off that tinfoil hat!  You’re just blowing smoke.  That would never really happen here.  There’s no way.

Just remember.  I didn’t put those words into Barack Obama’s mouth.

He did.

Sunday Open Thread

Cluster140 Comments

Haven’t had a true open thread for a while. So what’s on your mind? As for me, I am amazed at how Obama continues to escape responsibility for the anemic economy, persistent high unemployment, continued high gas prices, and a foreign policy that resulted in the death of an Ambassador.

Tell us what’s on your mind and please keep it civil.

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.

 

Love Is In The Air

Cluster48 Comments

Ever since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the world has become a much safer and peaceful place. The Arab Spring brought democracy to a region badly in need of Obama’s vision and greatness, and in 2009 when the students in Iran revolted against the Mullahs, Obama stood silent and indirectly supported the ruling regime in Iran, why? Well because, Obama knows everything, and that was the right thing to do to secure Iran’s respect in the future. Unfortunately a pretty student by the name of Neda was fatally shot in cold blood in the street, but what’s a few sacrifices, right? And today, Iran is as you expect with a great leader like Obama in charge – a country that respects us and is at peace with us:

Hundreds of thousands of people marched on Sunday in Tehran and other cities chanting “Death to America” as Iran marked the 34th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed shah.

In addition to Iran, after deposing their leader and bringing about democracy, Libya welcomed us by assassinating our Ambassador along with three others. This must have come as a big surprise to Obama and his very capable SecState Hillary Clinton, because they were so confident that Libya was on the road to peace that they didn’t even fortify the Embassy and ignored cables from the Ambassador asking for protection. It was all a big surprise, but the regime has imprisoned a California film maker, so at least we have addressed the problem. I mean “what difference does it make”, right? Other countries that have embraced the forward thinking vision of Obama include Mali, Sudan, Yemen, and of course Egypt where it all began with Obama’s unifying speech in Cairo. Women everywhere must have been delighted to hear the leader of the free world extend an olive branch to those men who oppress, beat and stone them to death.

Domestically, after endearing the nation by telling conservatives that they would have to “ride in the back of the bus”, by telling the Hispanic caucus to “punish their enemies”, and by calling his grandmother a “typical white person”, Obama has proceeded to bring us all even more together by increasing poverty, expanding the food stamp rolls, and increasing taxes on everyone. And speaking of women, I am sure that all American women are ecstatic to know that their leader thinks so highly of them that he doesn’t want them over burdened with a pregnancy, including his daughters, so killing that fetus really is the only option even if it does make it outside the womb. After all, I can’t think of any other choice a woman could make, can you? Obama certainly has unified us all, hasn’t he? We are all in this decline together. Isn’t it great!

The Odd Reaction to Christopher Dorner

Mark Noonan35 Comments

No, I haven’t read his “manifesto” and I’m not inclined to ever do so.  You want me to read your revolutionary manifesto?  Then engage in a full scale attack on a police station or military base – don’t bushwhack unarmed people, especially if one of them is merely the daughter of the person you’re mad at.  Real revolutionaries are manly and do the right thing.  But what Dorner has done and is doing is of less interest to me than some of the reactions I’ve seen.

Twitchy has been diligent in gathering reactions, and Robert Wargas went over to Huffington Post and got a large sample, as well.  What is happening is that a lot of our liberal friends out there are finding much to cheer about in the actions of Dorner.   Dorner is described as a hero – which does make a little bit of sense once you place yourself in a liberal mindset:  liberals have a long history of applauding cowards who attack the unarmed in the name of “justice”.  The Los Angeles Police Department is described as a pack of racist pigs who are getting what they deserve, and t his is after decades of the LAPD making every possible effort – often to the detriment of actual law enforcement activities – to implement “diversity” at the command of our liberals.

This is all very bizarre.  Liberals are essentially applauding violent, insane attacks upon the sources of their own power – and describing someone as a hero who, had he been of the right, they would have condemned as a lunatic.  Ultimately, this whole case is just another bit of proof that we are living in the Age of Lies…so much moral confusion that way too many people here – starting with Dorner – are disconnected from reality