You Didn’t Build That – Redux

Cluster31 Comments

I want to further the conversation on the current issue of business vs government as recently defined by our President who no doubt has a healthy disdain for success, in my opinion. I believe that this issue is one of the fundamental differences between conservative and liberal thought. Liberals, or at least the majority of current progressives, believe in social justice engineered by a large central federal government, taking from those at the top of the economic ladder and distributing to those on the lower rungs. This is hardly a new concept and has been done numerous times throughout history with little success. It has never resulted in lifting people out of poverty, nor has it resulted in creating a higher standard of living, or brought out the best in any individual. It has only served to enrich a ruling class at the expense of a permanent under class. What’s frustrating from a conservative position is that if you oppose the progressive agenda, than you are an evil over lord without any compassion, when in reality, conservatives do care, and have much more effective ideas on how to administer safety nets to those truly in need.

When the President stated that if you had a successful business, you didn’t build it and that others did, he offered a genuine glimpse into his true ideology, and that is one of collectivism. Of course this should be expected from someone who has never been a part of private enterprise having never started a business, nor even managed one, and yet has been the recipient of the benevolence of others almost at every stage of his life. Obama fails to understand the financial risk that so many people take to start their own business and be independent. If that individual fails, will the collectivists be there to off set the losses? I hardly think so, but the collectivists are sure there to take from that individuals success now aren’t they? Considering that business’s and successful individuals pay the majority of income taxes, it can be easily argued that they are largely responsible for building that infrastructure that others enjoy. It can easily be argued that without successful business’s, the government would not have the money to build those roads that those who don’t pay income taxes use on daily basis, so really, who should be more grateful? Shouldn’t the 47% who pay no income tax be grateful that hard working Americans provide the funds to build that infrastructure that they benefit from? Shouldn’t the president and other elected government officials be grateful to hard working, risk taking Americans for paying their salaries and benefits?  I really believe that this President and most liberals have their priorities all screwed up, and have put the cart before the horse.

Massacre, Redux

Mark Noonan151 Comments

A little later today the President of the United States will give a speech a little like this one or, perhaps, like that one.  The point is that the President will express his shock and grief over the shootings in Aurora, Colorado.

For the next few days we’ll have all sorts of reports about the massacre – we’ll learn about the shooter and about the least details of his sorry life.  We’ll learn if this was just some sort of crazed attack or (less likely) some sort of terrorist attack.  If it was a terrorist attack then it will be swiftly played down by government and MSM because confronting actual terrorism is forbidden right now (too busy with electoral matters – if it was some sort of terrorist attack, the reaction will be akin to the reaction to the Cole incident in 2000).  More than likely, though, this massacre is just another crazed attack in a long line of them – both in the United States and around the world.  Zero Hedge put together a handy list of the major mass shootings of the past 20 years.  Makes for depressing reading – but not so much because of the shootings, but because of our blindness on what it all means.

Even if the attack turns out to be terrorism, the list is still depressing and still so because of our unwillingness to confront reality.  Once upon a time, there weren’t mass shootings.  Not that there were fewer:  there were none.  Crazed lunatics with access to repeating rifles did not go on murderous rampages in the 1880’s.  Crazed lunatics with access to the Thompson sub-machine gun (a fully automatic weapon firing a murderous .45 ACP round at 600 rounds per minute…and anyone could buy it in the 20’s or 30’s…didn’t even need a permit) did not go on murderous rampages in the 1930’s.  Crazed lunatics who have to jump through government hoops to obtain semi-automatic weapons do go on murderous rampages, today.  What has changed?  I mean, other than the fact that it is harder to obtain less effective murder weapons than were available in the 1930’s?

Morality has changed.

Back in the past we didn’t have a society where the family was half collapsed.  We didn’t have a society where lies were officially designated as “politically correct” and thus not to be questioned.  Where the government nanny-State has replaced men in a quarter of all households.  Where violence is glorified in “cool” movies, television shows and video games.  Where obscene and/or anti-social behavior is not a matter for concern (until, that is, the obscene or anti-social person picks up a gun and starts shooting).   The problem we have – the reason people go on shooting rampages – is because we are an immoral society.  Until we become, once again, a moral society this will not change – all you’ll get is ever more shootings and, likely, ever worse shootings.

Until we brace ourselves to the task of rebuilding the family, denouncing the politically correct lies, dismantling the welfare State and start censoring what goes on in our popular culture, none of this will improve.  It will, indeed, only get worse.  Carp and complain about what I just wrote all you want – shriek to high heaven about how I just advocated censorship…but if you don’t agree with me, then you are part of the problem.  Your head is stuck firmly in the sand (though a much more vulgar suggestion of where it is would be more accurate).  You are ignoring reality in favor of one politically correct lie or another.   This is what it is – our collapse in morality leads to mass shootings.  Just as our collapse in morality has led to increased illegitimacy, divorce, cross-generational government dependence, rape, adultery/fornication, child abuse/neglect/abandonment, massively widespread sexually transmitted disease, increased child poverty, crime of all sorts, decayed cities…

Want to end all that?  Then start insisting upon the enforcement of morality.  If you don’t then nothing else you do will work and you’ll just see more and more of this…

UPDATE:  Roger L. Simon gets on the right track:

From Oliver Stone to Quentin Tarantino to Clint Eastwood, many of our best known filmmakers have trafficked in extreme, sometimes even gratuitous, violence. It has long been their contention, and those of others, that violence in film does not beget violence in life.

As the mass murder in Colorado has shown, they were wrong. Yes, normal people are able to separate illusion from reality, but for the criminally insane like James Holmes, it is quite clear that ultra-violent films can act as an inspiration for unspeakable acts.

Given the horrifying death toll, rare as the likes of Holmes may be, we have to account for the similarly deranged and aberrant. We owe that to the dead of Colorado and elsewhere. Moreover, we should not encourage these events, wittingly or unwittingly. And by we I mean the people who make films (which includes me)…

But he doesn’t go far enough – he eschews censorship.  But censorship of films, television, radio and video games (especially) is a necessary act in bringing to an end these horrendous massacres.  It is simple calculation:  what is more important, human lives of the ability of entertainment people to make an easy buck?  It is my view that because we have allowed popular culture to become a cesspit that it has not only become soaked in violence and sex but that it has also become lousy – actors are worse, direction is worse, writing is worse than it was in the glory days of Hollywood.  This is because acting in the manner of Spencer Tracy, directing in the manner of John Ford and writing with the style and grace of Charles Brackett (Ninotchka, Sunset Boulevard, The King and I, etc.) takes hard work as well as talent – much easier to just grind out movies with spectacular special effects, a few flashed boobs, some cuss words and a couple catch-phrases.

Do not, I pray you, try to sell me the utter garbage that censoring violence and sex out of popular culture attacks freedom.  Men and women did not fight and die for the “freedom” to put out disgusting filth and charge $8 to see it.  The heroes of America’s past fought and died so that we could worship God, speak our minds and live our lives without let or hindrance from others.  If the only way you can feel free is when your watching someone be disemboweled in an action flick, then you are a complete slave, so pound sand and get out of this debate and allow the adults to take over.

UPDATE II:  Naturally, the left is trying to blame the TEA Party and the larger conservative movement for this.  They’ll never take aim at the purveyors of popular filth.  Oh, no – that would mean a drying up of invites to the cool parties as well as a drop off in donations…

UPDATE III:  Its not just me thinking along these lines.

How “Progressive” is our Tax System?

tiredoflibbs41 Comments

Professor and chairman of the economics department at Harvard University, Greg Mankiw, took the latest CBO report and ran some numbers for 2009, the most recent year for which we have records.   He wanted to look at not only the amount of taxes someone paid, but also how much money individuals got BACK from the government in the form of refundable tax credits, welfare payments, entitlements and other government goodies.

So here are his calculations for the taxes each income level pays.  What this economist measured here is the amount of taxes the members of these income groups paid TO the government minus the amount of money these people got back in the form of various government payments:

Bottom quintile: -301 percent
Second quintile: -42 percent
Middle quintile: -5 percent
Fourth quintile: 10 percent
Highest quintile: 22 percent
Top one percent: 28 percent

As Mankiw explains the bottom quintile of Americans are essentially receiving $3 in UNEARNED income from the taxpayers for every dollar they earn.  He also points out something rather critical, and this is the fact that the middle quintile of taxpayers is in the negative, which means that they are net tax consumers.  That is almost a 20 point swing since 1979, when middle income earners were tax contributors.

This explains how 50% of Americans pay no income taxes at all … and instead absorb tax money paid by others.

As Ben Franklin has said:

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.

http://jpetrie.myweb.uga.edu/poor_richard.html

These FACTS do not bode well with the proggy LIE, in their class warfare, that the “rich are not paying their fair share”!

Another Obama Investment Goes Belly Up

Mark Noonan29 Comments

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

The Amonix solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, heavily financed under an Obama administration energy initiative, has closed its 214,000-square-foot facility 14 months after it opened…

…A designer and manufacturer of concentrated photovoltaic solar power systems, Amonix received $6 million in federal tax credits and a $15.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to open the plant in North Las Vegas…

If it was a worthwhile investment then private investors would have ponied up the money for it – that it took a massive, federal grant to get it off the ground demonstrated that it was doomed to failure from the start.  But Obama backed it – just like he did Solyndra and other failed “green jobs”.  And if he’s re-elected he’ll just go right on funding them…because he’s an utter fool who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

obAMATEUR Expands the Dependent Class AGAIN and Bypasses Congress!

tiredoflibbs78 Comments

Let’s look at this pResident’s accomplishments:

  • Government takeover of 17% of the economy and your health care.
  • Doubling the number of Americans on food stamps.
  • Spanish soap operas to encourage Hispanics to sign up for food stamps.

And now……

Since the beginning Obama intended to reverse the welfare reforms made by the Republican majority when Clinton was president.  Those reforms freed millions of Americans from their government dependency.  This is not the direction in which Obama wants to travel.

The Obama administration via the Department of Health and Human Services has essentially rewritten the rules established by the welfare reform law of 1996.  The new policy, as per the Obama administration, will no longer require welfare recipients to work in order to maintain their benefits.

(For those who cannot connect the dots)FROM THE MEMO:

Waivers will be granted only for provisions related to section 402.

Of the roughly 35 sections of the TANF law, only one is listed as waiveable under section 1115. This is section 402.

Section 402 describes state plans—reports that state governments must file to HHS describing the actions they will undertake to comply with the many requirements established in the other sections of the TANF law. The authority to waive section 402 provides the option to waive state reporting requirements only, not to overturn the core requirements of the TANF program contained in the other sections of the TANF law.

The new Obama dictate asserts that because the work requirements, established in section 407, are mentioned as an item that state governments must report about in section 402, all the work requirements can be waived. This removes the core of the TANF program; TANF becomes a blank slate that HHS bureaucrats and liberal state bureaucrats can rewrite at will – or mealy mouthed words as “innovation”..

Therefore, states and other bureaucracies can DEFINE WORK as they attempted before but were overridden.

Over the years, the definition of “work” began to deteriorate and in 2005, Congress tried to reign in the definition of what constitutes “work” in order to receive welfare.   Barack Obama, a Senator at that time, was opposed to this effort – no surprise there.

Here is a SENATE report as to what states have attempted to define as work:

http://www.finance.senate.gov/newsroom/ranking/release/?id=47ada91c-07ac-4c7f-bc20-182df03d2654

Some of these include:
1.    Bed rest
2.    Personal care activities
3.    Massage
4.    Exercise
5.    Journaling
6.    Motivational reading
7.    Smoking cessation
8.    Weight loss promotion
9.    Participating in parent teacher meetings
10.  Helping a friend or relative with household tasks and errands

These are what casper tried to pass off as “innovation”. How Sec. of HHS can grant waivers to states that have these activities (or whatever else) in their innovative plans (Section 402).

So, when he says “moving in the right direction”, I guess this is it – EXPANDING the dependent class!

Question is, does this pResident have the authority to do this – reverse law WITHOUT CONGRESS!  I mean this has never stopped him before!!

The Heritage Foundation reminds us of the growing list of Obama administration actions that it has taken to circumvent the legislative process.

  • Even though the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected the President’s cap-and-trade plan, his Environmental Protection Agency classified carbon dioxide, the compound that sustains vegetative life, as a pollutant so that it could regulate it under the Clean Air Act.
  • After the Employee Free Choice Act—designed to bolster labor unions’ dwindling membership rolls—was defeated by Congress, the National Labor Relations Board announced a rule that would implement “snap elections” for union representation, limiting employers’ abilities to make their case to workers and virtually guaranteeing a higher rate of unionization at the expense of workplace democracy.
  • After an Internet regulation proposal failed to make it through Congress, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it would regulate the Web anyway, even despite a federal court’s ruling that it had no authority to do so.
  • Although Congress consistently has barred the Department of Education from getting involved in curriculum matters, the Administration has offered waivers for the No Child Left Behind law in exchange for states adopting national education standards, all without congressional authorization.
  • Since it objects to existing federal immigration laws, the Administration has decided to apply those laws selectively and actively prevent the state (like Arizona) from enforcing those laws themselves.
  • Rather than push Congress to repeal federal laws against marijuana use, the Department of Justice (DOJ) simply decided it would no longer enforce those laws.
  • DOJ also has announced that it would stop enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act or defending it from legal challenge rather than seeking legislative recourse.

These are the actions of a RULER, not a leader. It’s too bad more Americans haven’t focused on the words of Valerie Jarrett – the head of Obama’s transition team – days before his inauguration:  “We will be ready to RULE from day one.”

ImageImage

What??

Cluster101 Comments

Have we ever had a President, or dog catcher for that matter, this hostile towards private business?

If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.

It is absolutely mind boggling how out of touch this President is. In his auto biography “Dreams of my Father”, Obama wrote that his short foray into the private sector made him feel that he was “a spy behind enemy lines”, revealing once again how much disdain he has for private markets, which is completely anti American. I would expect this from some tin horn despot, but not from the President of the United States. We can do much, much better and let’s make sure we do this November.

Be Cautious About Syrian Civil War Stories

Mark Noonan9 Comments

From the BBC:

…The BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut says it remains far from clear what took place at Tremseh.

The government says its armed forces mounted a special operation after tip-offs from local people about large numbers of armed rebels operating from hideouts there…

…Our correspondent says that, in contrast to the massacre at Houla two months ago, the opposition has not yet produced videos or a detailed lists of names of civilians killed.

He says that activist and human rights groups have named a handful of civilians they say died in the bombardment of the village, but the few video postings they have produced, showing the bodies of young men, are consistent with the government line that many rebel fighters were killed…

This, of course, doesn’t in any way, shape or form rehabilitate the Assad regime – we know that through the reigns of both father and son, that regime has been nothing but a load of corrupt, cruel, rat bastards.  But what we have learned of the rebels can give no one any thought that their replacing the Assad regime would bring in light and reason.  Here is what the Syrian rebels are like:

Shocking images have emerged which show the aftermath of Christian churches ransacked by NATO-backed Syrian rebels, illustrating once again how western powers are supporting Muslim extremists in their bid to achieve regime change in the middle east.

A photograph provided to us by a Christian woman in Homs, scene of some of the bloodiest clashes of the conflict, shows a member of the Free Syrian Army posing with a looted Catholic cross in one hand and a gun in the other while wearing a priest’s robe…

I’ve heard stories that whole villages of Christians were forced to flee from the rebels.  It must be kept in mind that the rebels are Islamist.  They will use women and children as shields.  They will deliberately set things up so that when regime forces attack, non-combatants will be killed.  They will, to put it bluntly, be cruel as well as cowardly and that the only thing thing whey want to change is who is in charge of looting while also adding a layer of sharia barbarism to the nation.

There is nothing we can do in Syria unless we wanted to invade and kill every single person in possession of a weapon.  Then you could be fairly certain you were killing all the people who are causing the trouble.  But as we are not prepared to do something like that, our course of action is to stay away – with perhaps providing some assistance to the Christians who are able and willing to flee.  Other than that, US policy should be directed towards taking advantage of the Assad regime’s difficulties and leveraging the Syrians out of Lebanon.  That would do more for US and Israeli security than pretending that the rebels are other than rats and helping them to replace the current rats in charge.

Rice for Vice President?

Mark Noonan135 Comments

From Drudge:

Late Thursday evening, Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign launched a new fundraising drive, ‘Meet The VP’ — just as Romney himself has narrowed the field of candidates to a handful, sources reveal.

And a surprise name is now near the top of the list: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice!

The timing of the announcement is now set for ‘coming weeks’.

Plus:  Massive excitement in the GOP base.  Clearly the smartest person in the room (we’d have to force Rice to speak with rags stuffed in her mouth just so Biden wouldn’t sound like a complete idiot during the VP debate).  Not only cuts the rug under the racism lie from the liberals but as they are sure to try and call her a “Tom” it will actually hurt them massively.

Minus:  Bit of a reminder of Bush who still remains unpopular (though his popularity is greatly rebounding as people take the full measure of his successor).

What do you think?

Global Warming Update

Cluster173 Comments

According to a recent report:

“Rings in fossilized pine trees have proven that the world was much warmer than previously thought – and the earth has been slowly COOLING for 2,000 years.”

These findings will not set well with the ruling elite here and abroad as they are currently trying to extract money from carbon emitting countries to redistribute to other less fortunate countries. That of course is assuming  money would even make it to those less fortunate countries, considering that historically, that money only serves to line the pockets of elite UN members and Despots.

Let’s  continue down the path toward greener, more sustainable energy, but let’s also end this charade of AGW. It’s a complete racket that is only enriching a handful of people, can you say Al Gore, and doing nothing to actually help us transition to another energy platform.

Remember that “New Tone” BS?

Mark Noonan75 Comments

From Politico:

Politicians recognize they give up a degree of privacy when they run for office.

But Democrats are testing the outer limits of that understanding with a practice that raises questions about when campaign tracking becomes something more like stalking.

While most serious campaigns on both sides use campaign trackers — staffers whose job is to record on video every public appearance and statement by an opponent — House Democrats are taking it to another level. They’re now recording video of the homes of GOP congressmen and candidates and posting the raw footage on the Internet for all to see…
This is just plain and simple intimidation – an attempt to scare Republicans.  By videotaping the homes (and, it seems, posting addresses on the internet) Democrats are inviting lunatics to do bad things.  Democrats complained mightily in the wake of the Giffords shooting that the mere use of targets on a map put people at risk…but now Democrats are actually giving the address, and a helpful picture of the place, to anyone on the left who takes seriously the notion that Republicans are evil and must be stopped at all costs.
If this – and the rest of the Democrat hate-mongering – doesn’t stop, then someone is going to get killed.  Depend on it.  Is there anyone on the Democrat side who has a shred of honor left and will try to stop this?