big government

by Lance Thompson

 Barack Obama rode to the presidency on a tidal wave of campaign enthusiasm, famously promising Hope and Change.  Instead, his administration has been governed by Fear and Loathing.  The arguments for Obama’s health care reform bill–ten pages shy of two thousand pages at last count–have all used fear.  Twenty million Americans are without health insurance, we are told, then 32 million, then 47 million.  If we don’t pass this massive, indecipherable bill, insurance will be unaffordable, you will go broke if you get sick, millions will die.  Prescription drug companies, insurance companies, doctors and hospitals who question the grand prophecies of the bill’s proponents are told that if they protest this massive takeover of one sixth of the economy, they will be punished with retributive amendments and strangled by federal regulation.    The cap and trade bill was sold in the same way.  If we don’t hobble our industries with restrictions and regulations, the Earth will grow warm, ice caps will melt, polar bears will starve, coastal cities will be inundated.  Carbon dioxide, a gas all animals exhale, is now a toxic substance that must be regulated as well.  We are all polluters, and we must literally be saved from ourselves.  The stimulus bill passed on fear and panic.  If we don’t pump $800 billion into the economy within a week, the market will crash, millions will lose their jobs, your savings will vanish, your home will be foreclosed, you will be living in an appliance box under the freeway.  The federal government took over banks, auto companies, Wall Street firms, this time applying the voice of terror to the corporate officers and boards of directors.  If you don’t agree to a government takeover, your pay will be cut, your pensions cancelled, your stock made worthless.  Go along with us, or the full weight of the federal government will be used to crush you.  What the Obama administration cannot convince us to fear, they loathe.  The administration loathes our international allies.  The White House significantly recharacterized the “special relationship” we’ve had with Great Britain since World War II to a “special partnership,” putting our English cousins at arm’s length. We observe diplomatic niceties with Iran, Libya and leaders of Hamas while warning the Israelis we may shoot down their jets if they do the world a favor and knock out Ahmadinejad’s nukes.  The French, whose relationship with the United States warmed when Sarkozy took over, are snubbed when Obama is too busy to meet with the French President on a European trip.  Taiwan and Japan look for backup from us against North Korean missile launches, but we scarcely can find the time to lodge a half-hearted protest.  The Obama administration holds our allies in contempt.  The administration loathes a free press.  They like the main stream media, as long as they are Obama-worshiping cheerleaders and not impartial referees.  But if Fox posts a critical story, the administration attacks them, and threatens to cut off access to top officials.  When the Associated Press found last week that the White House had overstated stimulus-created jobs by 5,000, the White House immediately attacked the wire service.   If a conservative commentator lambasts the administration, he is discredited, insulted, and prevented from engaging in his right to enter a bid on a football franchise.  Most of all, the Obama administration loathes America.  They despise its military power, so often used to defend against tyranny and aggression.  They are ashamed of its capitalistic system and economic strength, though both are inspirations for the world.  They dismiss the independent spirit, the individual liberty, and the unlimited opportunity that characterize the American dream.  Instead, they believe in an all-powerful state that redistributes wealth, picks winners and losers in the private sector, and takes over companies and entire industries by fiat.  The Obama team’s loathing for America becomes more evident every day, as more and more administration officials are shown to be involved in corrupt organizations like ACORN, sympathetic to or adherents of communism, or enablers of terrorists foreign and domestic.    The fear weapon also has a limited term.  Just as Al Gore’s shrieking alarms of global warming become less and less credible with passing time and lowering temperatures, so will all the dire predictions the Obama administration uses to run up massive debt, pass nationally destructive legislation, and appoint subversives to positions of power.  The case that only government can save us from catastrophe becomes harder to prove each day, as government itself is clearly shown to be the greatest danger we face.  When Americans become wary of their government, then the Obama administration will find that fear is a two-edged sword, and an irresistible motive for change.  Or so we hope.

If you can make it through the puerile and prurient ravings of David Shuster, sitting in for the normally oh-so-(mentally)-balanced Keith Olbermann, you find this nugget at 5:50 into the 8-minute-long stream of sexual jokes:

Lawrence O'Donnell, "[Medicare and Social Security] are well-working Socialist programs within the American government.  There's absolutely no other description of them."

Nice to hear a liberal admit this instead of trying to pretend these programs are anything but government taking from some to give to others.

GM's Rick Wagoner being fired by President Obama is unpresidented. While Not typically one for slippery-slope arguments, this is noteworthy and concerning. Larry Kudlow discusses this remarkable shift in his article A ‘Truly Breathtaking’ Departure - which is defenitely worth a read...

Remember, as bad as Wagoner’s performance has been over the years, it was the federal government — not shareholders or the board of directors — that threw him under the bus. (By the way, GM’s board is being thrown under that same bus.) And I’m not arguing in favor of Wagoner or his board; they’ve made a zillion mistakes. But I am wondering if we’ve officially entered a new era of government-controlled business. Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), probably the most knowledgeable man in Congress about the car bailout, and someone who argued months ago in favor of a pre-planned government-sponsored bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler, calls the Wagoner firing “a major power-grab by the White House on the heels of another power-grab from Secretary Geithner, who asked last week for the freedom to decide on his own which companies are ‘systemically’ important to our country and worthy of taxpayer investment, and which are not.” Corker calls this “a marked departure from the past,” “truly breathtaking,” and something that “should send a chill through all Americans who believe in free enterprise.”

GM Involvement Put Government Into Realm of Industrial Policy Maker

December 16^th, marks the 235^th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

235 years ago the residents of the American colonies had enough. They could no longer quietly tolerate the oppression of a ruling authority that dictated too much. They were tired of the majesty’s demands upon them and it all came to a head in Boston when the cry of “taxation without representation” resulted in a tea party that was anything but sedate or civil. Back then, American colonists were developing a sense of independence that wanted government out of their lives. They wanted to make their own wages without a ruling authority limiting how much of it they could earn. They wanted the right to have a say in the way their territory was run. This spirit led to the Declaration of Independence and eventually it led to the birth of what the world would came to know as the freest, most innovative and powerful nation in the universe.

Today, we still hold that impressive title but many of us see it being lost.

That greatness is a bi-product of freedom. A freedom that has allowed individuals to flourish well beyond the limited framework that any one established authority could set it’s people on. The diversity of thinking, and goals has created the greatest pool of ideas known to man.

Our freedom and individuality has been the key to our greatness but unlike the people of colonial America, today, Americans are giving up their freedom and relinquishing their individuality to a controlling authority that they want to give greater control to.

Instead of demanding “no taxation without representation” we are accepting of the practice.

If you live in New Jersey but work in New York, in addition to a litany of federal taxes and state taxes, you have to pay a commuter tax. Does paying that tax give New Jerseyans the chance to vote for leaders and representatives in New York? Heck no! But without any representation for them in New York, they are forced to pay taxes to New York.

This scenario is not limited to New York. It exists almost everywhere in the nation but that does not make it right. It is simply an indication of the spirit that has been lost since days of old.

Further indication of this is made in other areas of government.

Instead of that sense of responsibility that the colonists had, today we look towards government for everything. Where the colonists wanted less of the majesty’s governance, we want more of the federal bureaucracy’s governance.

Have a business that isn’t successful? Let the government bail you out.

Want to start a business? Let the government give you a grant to do it.

Lost money on a business deal or investment? Let the government give you the money back.

Let the government do everything and pay for everything, right?

Wrong!

The money the government gives you is not theirs to give away. It is your money, it is our money. It is the tax dollars we let them take from us and the more we refuse to do for ourselves, the more money they take from us.

Economically, that doesn’t sound like a bad thing but in reality it is anything but a good deal.

When the bureaucracy of government does something, they do so in a way that costs much more than any individual or private sector institution can. So by letting the government do more, is allowing more money to be wasted. If you needed a hammer would you buy one for 8 bucks at Home Depot yourself or would you buy the same one from the Pentagon for 108 dollars?

The government needs to get out of our business and Americans need to recapture the independent spirit that founded this country and made us the great nation that we are.

We need to start doing for ourselves what we have come to expect government to do for us. Our reliance on a controlling authority has taken control of our lives away from us. That reliance has created a dependency that has led to the growth of government and that growth has created the need for more money. Money that is raised by increasing the taxes that the people have to pay.

The Boston Tea Party may not have been a cozy afternoon gathering but it was a good thing. It signaled our deep rooted yearning for our God given freedom and believe it or not, freedom is still a good thing.

235 years later Americans are far removed from that fact. Instead of demanding less government and more personal freedom, we ask for more government and more government action. Instead of protesting excessive taxation we just held an election that endorsed more taxes and “spreading the wealth around”.

Maybe we will have to lose some of our freedom in order to realize what all the hullabaloo in Boston was about.

Slowly we already have lost some of our freedoms but apparently not enough. Not enough to select candidates who want to limit government. Not enough to force representatives to stop trying to solve problems by restricting our freedoms and creating more problems.

Just how much freedom we must lose before we begin to miss it, is quite important.

That freedom made us the great power and people that we are and the more of it that we lose, the further from greatness we shall fall.

So today, before charging the spouses gift on that past due credit card, take a moment and reflect on the participants of the Boston Tea Party. A bunch of colonists who saw more value in their freedom than any Christmas gift. A group of soon to be Americans whose desires for a better life led them to renounce the authority of a government for the sake of their freedom and the eventual freedom that we have come to take for granted and whittle away.

A man took a trip out West after a harrowing IRS audit. He stopped in a bar, and after a few drinks, stated to no one in particular, "IRS agents are horses' asses."

One of the locals spoke up on hearing this: "Mister, you'd better watch what you say. You're in horse country."

 Obviously back in the good old days of 2007, the political buzzword of the year was Surge.  Beginning with General Petraeus's implementation of the highly controversial "surge" tactics and overall strategy in the Iraqi war theater, beginning in January 2007, the word dominated news reports and political anaysis for the year to describe virtually anything - a "surge," of forces in Iraq, a "surge" of diplomacy that Democratic contenders for President promised, a "surge" in the polls for this or that politician in the primaries.