Thursday, April 26, 2012

Poor Progressives

It must be hard living in a free country when your fantasies revolve around controlling other people's behavior.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Truth or Consequences? What do you get when liberals with an agenda ‘investigate’ the Tea Party? A book on the Tea Party that does not mention our 3 founding principles. Two women academics visited many Tea Party meetings and concluded ‘personal dislikes’ were the basis of the Tea Party and not philosophy of government or adherence to the Constitution. They saw close up and personal the truth of Americans concerned with the direction of this country under the liberal, Obama agenda ( granted older and white) but concluded that the Tea Party hates four things: youth, Obama personally, professors and freeloaders. Don’t these four fit the bill? Tea Partiers favored programs, such as social security and medicare, that they already benefitted from, but wanted to deny any benefits to others lower on the social scale, called freeloaders. Anyway, they admired and respected Tea Party members personally, but concluded their animus was strange because it threatened the status quo. Truth has no chance when it confronts the consequences of the pre-conceptions of liberals. Too bad. Too sad. Have you ever noticed that middle-aged and older men with hair tend to be lotharios? Have you ever thought that sponsoring a ‘hot mom’ contest in Columbus misses the point that a wife ( if a mother) should not set the example of immodesty in motherhood? Truth or consequences describes America’s present cultural decadence.
HOW COMFORTING: Salazar: ‘No one knows’ if US headed to $9/gal gas. “Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that ‘no one knows’ if gasoline prices in the United States will reach $9 per gallon, and acknowledged that the possibility is outside his control.” Related: Reid draws line against Keystone. “Senate Democrats will hold firm and reject House Republican demands to include approval of the Keystone oil pipeline in transportation funding legislation, their leader said Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he would not in any way help Republicans move Keystone approval across the finish line.”

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

THE ANSWER IS ‘FOUR’. Math government style. QUESTION? Does $549B minus $260.8B = 4 more years? The American Action Forum reports: “In 2011, Medicare spent $549.1 billion on medical services for America’s seniors but only collected $260.8 billion in payroll taxes and monthly premiums. Trustees have now issued a funding warning for 7 straight years.” The bottom line is “....the cash shortfall is responsible for over one-fourth of the federal debt accumulated since 2001.” Your answer probably was: WE LOST $288.2 BILLION DOLLARS! But the Obama administrations sees it as only a chance to manipulate, fudge and obscure the numbers to get FOUR MORE YEARS OF OBAMA. Simply put, one Ponzi scheme to hide another Ponzi scheme is the normal mode of a too big government.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

OBAMA "UNMITIGATED DISASTER"

HE’S BAAACK! Cheney on Obama: “He has been an unmitigated disaster to the country.” Apparently the lefty death-tweets had no impact: “Former Vice President Dick Cheney walked onstage without any assistance and spoke for an hour and 15 minutes without seeming to tire in his first public engagement since he underwent a heart transplant three weeks ago.”

WHY LIMITED GOVERNMENT IS NEEDED

Café Hayek: Reprobates I do not recall ever, as an adult, failing to be mystified whenever I encounter another adult expressing confidence in politicians – confidence either in an individual politician (say, confidence in Ronald Reagan or in Barack Obama) or confidence in politicians as a group. Successful politicians – and particularly those who are successful on national stages – are, with exceptions too few to matter, master con artists. Whatever is the reason why so many grown people respect holders of political office is, as it has always been, beyond my comprehension. I just don’t get it. Practitioners of no other profession are accorded more honor, respect, and (most importantly) power while at the same time being held to such low standards of ethical behavior. Actions that, when committed by the family dog, properly elicit scolding or muzzling or even eviction from the premises are, when committed by an elected official, greeted with oohs, aahhs, applause, and re-election to powerful office. I cannot encounter a politician’s image or words without being repulsed. Nor can I encounter any of the incessant instances of publicly expressed admiration and respect for politicians without being (on good days) befuddled or (on most days) sickened. Bob Higgs feels much the same way as I do. Here’s a slice of his latest post: So, the questions naturally arise: Why does anyone place any confidence in anything a politician says? Why does anyone expect anything but deception and predation from these dishonest reprobates? Why does anyone seek social improvement or economic salvation from the programs these ne’er-do-wells devise and implement? Why, indeed, do people continue to tolerate politics at all? (This last question presupposes, of course, that those who wish to use the political process to commit a de facto crime—that is, an act that, if committed privately, would be seen as plainly criminal—will be entirely in favor of politics because using the government as their agent-perpetrator offers a way to legalize their crimes. My question pertains to the noncriminal element of the population.) Why indeed

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

adjust the way we live to fit standards

FROM ‘HOT AIR’ BLOG: Liz Bierendy, a 17-year-old artist who attends Pilgrim High School in Warwick, R.I., has had to defend her artistic vision for a mural to cover a wall of the high school. The work, designed to show the progression of a boy from childhood to adulthood, ends with a depiction of a man standing hand-in-hand with a woman and child. The man and woman wear wedding bands. Critics said the mural might not represent the life experiences of many of the students at Pilgrim High School — so Bierendy should have to change it. Fortunately, the Warwick School Superintended inserted himself into the controversy and insisted that Bierendy should be allowed to finish the mural as she designed it. My first thought when I read this story was of the elephant-dung-dusted image of the Virgin Mary that once was brought to New York’s Brooklyn Museum of Art. When Christians complained, the common refrain was, “What’s the matter? It’s just art.” That’s what I want to ask Bierendy’s critics now: “What’s the matter? It’s just art.” But another layer to this story exists. The reaction to Bierendy’s mural underscores society’s alarming tendency to adjust standards to fit the way we live, rather than adjust the way we live to fit standards. (Incidentally, I’d note that many of these standards are rooted not just in societal mores, but in natural law. We’re not actually able to “change” them — just to deny or ignore them at our own peril. But that’s another post!) While we should be realistic about human nature and certainly shouldn’t base governmental policies on idealistic assumptions, we should nevertheless work to renew the culture such that it brews better and better behavior in each successive generation.

DEATH PANEL WITH A ‘SMILEY’ FACE

Ann Althouse reports: “Trend watch: Segregated hospital emergency rooms. Because there's a class of persons who need different treatment. There were no beeping machines or blinking lights or scurrying medical residents. A volunteer circulated among the patients like a flight attendant, making soothing conversation and offering reading glasses, Sudoku puzzles and hearing aids. Above them, an artificial sun shined through a skylight imprinted with a photographic rendering of a robin’s-egg-blue sky, puffy clouds and leafy trees. Ms. Spielberger, who is in her 80s, was even getting into the spirit of the place, despite her unnerving condition. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Everything here is wonderful.” If you think that's beautiful, you should see the afterlife. Or am I taking this the wrong way? The NYT is acting like this is sort of posh. But one look at the headline — "For the Elderly, Emergency Rooms of Their Own" — and my "Death Panels!" red flag went up. Let's make them very comfortable, let's palliate, but let's not save them. The heroic treatments are in that other emergency room, the one for the people who are still useful.” If they are very lucky Pres. Obama might drift by and give them an aspirin or pain killer pill like he suggested in his campaign.