A note to the President.

President Obama,

On your recent visit to Rhode Island, the one where the Democratic candidate in the gubernatorial race Frank Caprio said that you could "take [your] endorsement and shove it,” I heard you say the following:

“we can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”

Now, while I am sure that in your analogy you see the government firmly planted behind the wheel of the car that represents the economic and political path of this country, perhaps you might [in the future] take a moment to consider how such imagery paints you and affects those people you were elected to govern. Perhaps you might want to consider that your audience, at least those who are familiar with the Constitution, might believe that it is not the government who should be driving anything; but, rather it is the people who should be driving. The government, in any proper analogy, would be the pit crew that keeps air in the tires and grease in the bearings so that the wheels of industry are ready to go at a moment’s notice; keeps the wiper blades updated so that we can see the road ahead and plan for those things that we can tell are approaching; basically that does those things they are contractually allowed to do. [As a hint, driving is not one of these things.]

Now as a second point here you might want to watch your message a bit more closely for a couple of reasons. First, please try to remember that, as the President of the United States, you are the President of everyone here: Republicans included. When you suggest that the roll of the minority party in a Constitutional Republic is to simply come along for the ride and sit in back, your meaning [that Republicans should simply shut up and let Democrats do whatever they desire to do at the moment because they are of no importance at all] is pretty clear. Surely you must understand that it is the job of all representatives to represent their constituents and that in telling them to stay out of the way and be relegated to “the back seat” you are tacitly telling large numbers of the American people to do this as well.

Secondly, while I am sure that you were simply trying to come across as placatory, when you said “We don’t mind the Republicans joining us,” this message [especially when taken in context] was clearly insincere. It is a bit like a high school jock dismissing someone with whom he does not wish to associate by smarmily intoning “I guess you could come for the ride if you want to but you’ll have to carry my sweaty gym bag.” Yes the welcome is stated, but the rejection is clear. The problem with your statement is twofold. First, when you relegate Republicans to the back and the middle class to ride shotgun you seem to be forgetting the large number of the middle class who are Republicans. Thus, by your own words it would seem that, while you claim the middle class needs to be “up front,” it is clear that, under your administration, the Republican middle class is welcome in the back seat alone. Secondly, by stating that Republicans are welcome to simply come along for the ride, you are implying that once the ride is over, they are not invited to take participate in the destination. With such open hostility being put forth by no less than the President of the United States, how could those on its receiving end not get the feeling that the administration is less interested in the welfare of all than in the welfare of those he has chosen to be “up front?”

Ultimately, when you demonize Wall Street, you [the President] are demonizing Americans. When you talk about the greedy upper class, you [the President] are demonizing Americans. When you tell Republicans that they should sit down, shut up, and simply agree to come along for the ride, you [the President] are saying this to Americans. Remember, you were elected to be a leader and these are certainly not the actions of one.

Get Ready to Dig Deep

So far I have had several posts about how people want to take your things from you to give to others in a power grab masked as fairness. This weekend, the LA Times threw its hat into the ring as an enabler of this view.

How did they do it? The LA Times, in reporting on the possible recommendations of the [what I am sure we will soon see is the improperly named] National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, gives space to author Kenneth Harney to write the following about possible upcoming tax change recommendations:

“Likely targets: The mortgage interest deduction, which added about $100 billion to the deficit in fiscal 2010 and more than $400 billion during the last five years, according to congressional estimates; capital gains exclusions for home sale profits, which cost more than $128 billion between fiscal 2006 and 2010; and property tax write-offs, which cost $70 billion-plus during the same period.”

At a glance, the more smooth brained among Harney’s readers will most likely look at the idea that each of these programs are adding significantly to the deficit and [after working painstakingly with their Cipher Me Elmo calculators for several hours] ultimately add the numbers above to get a number that [while almost assuredly wrong] seems “pretty high.” As a result of this realization, these people will eventually succeed at wrapping their fragile little head meat around the idea that adding to the deficit is “bad” and so these programs must be "bad” as well.

The problem with this idea, as those people who’s minds have a few more wrinkles will see almost immediately, is that adding to the deficit is a result of spending rather than a result of not taking more of other people’s property.

Let’s think a moment about this if we could. If Congress looked at the money they have coming in and then spent only that amount, there would be no deficit. Further, if a part of what they planned to spend was applied to the National Debt, that too would one day disappear. This is how budgets should work. It is only the willful decision to spend MORE than you are taking in that will add to the deficit. It is only the willful decision to IGNORE the debt that allows it to grow to the levels it has now reached.

The belief that legal deductions are somehow adding to the deficit requires the believer to dismiss the roll of the government in the process at all. Further, this attempt to push the blame for deficits to property owners is yet another step towards seizing wealth in addition to taxing income as a method of redistribution.

The evidence is all around us. Whether we choose to see it will determine our future and the future of our children.

Who Said That?

Okay, so… I was right.

In my October 7^th post I wrote a bit about the comment made by Jim Moran [the Democratic Congressman from VA] and stated that if you really looked at his words, you would see that he was talking about seizing more than taxes. By looking more closely at his idiotic statement, you could see that Moran was actually suggesting that property is not safe as far as he is concerned and that he would have little problem seizing it to distribute as he sees fit.

Shortly after making these points I was told by several people that I was just “being paranoid.”

Sadly, it took only about 10 days for my assertion to be proven. On October 19th, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said the following:

“We’re talking about addressing the disparity in our country of income… But that disparity is not just about wages alone, that disparity is about ownership and equity.”

That’s right folks. The person who is third in line for the Presidency has come out and directly stated that we need to address the disparity in what people own and what equity [read this as accumulated wealth] they have been able to put away.

And why, one might ask, should they be looking to take away from those who have earned what they have? Pelosi answers that one as well:

“It’s all about fairness in our country.”

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the “fairness” that Pelosi is speaking of here is a fairness that she wants to decide on. While I am sure that those on the receiving end of such a handout would somehow be able to delude themselves into seeing the seizure as some act of fairness, I somehow doubt that those who would have their property and equity taken to be distributed to others would consider it “fair.”

Perhaps someone should take a moment to sit this twit down and explain that rather than being all about “fairness,” this country is actually all about “freedom.” Even a cursory glance at the Constitution should have made this apparent even to our esteemed speaker. That it has not, makes me wonder how loudly the spine of her copy would crack if she ever decided to open it.

Careful Nancy, the pages of a book that has never been read can cause nasty paper cuts.

Snyder v. Phelps [A Supreme Court case that should not have been necessary]

If you have missed the fervor surrounding the heinous actions by the WBC [which either stands for Wart-filled Bile-spewing Colons or Westboro Baptist Church depending on who you ask] and the infamous pastor Fred Phelps please consider yourself lucky.

They seem to find great pleasure in playing on the grief of others by carrying signs such as “Thank God For IEDs” while protesting at [among other locations] the funerals of fallen soldiers. They also seem to enjoy holding up signs saying how got hates homosexuals and attacking the Catholic Church. While I could go on to discuss every disgusting thing that has ever floated to the surface of their rather smooth textured minds, there is really no point.

Ultimately, the truth is that they have the right to say disgusting things in public places and we have the right to ignore them. When it comes to saying things that are specifically meant to infuriate those people grieving at a funeral, I think that perhaps we could craft laws that would protect their rights in this way:

It is considered a misdemeanor crime to physically assault someone carrying out a protest at the funeral of any person and any person found to have severely physically assaulted someone in the act of such a protest will be subject to a cumulative fine beginning from $.10 not to exceed $1.00 and civil fines also beginning from $.10 and not to exceed $1.00. Failure to pay such a fine may subject the offender to the possibility of up to 30 seconds of public service. [Such public service should consist of telling those who have been beaten that they did a good job in accomplishing their goal of inflaming the other person to violence.] Once restitution is made, all records of this offence will be immediately expunged.

I wonder how many more protests we would see at funerals. I would hope for at least a few more.

A Democratic argument against savings...

I recently heard the following quote from Jim Moran [Democratic Congressman from VA]:

“For the last seven years we have had the highest corporate profit ever in American history… But it hasn’t been shared, and that’s the problem, because we have been guided by a Republican Administration who believes in the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it. They have an antipathy toward the means of redistributing wealth.” Jim Moran D-VA Congress

Now this quote is from a while back but it really demonstrates a fundamental difference in how many Democrats view the world.

As recently as just a few years back, I would have found it difficult to believe that any politician could say what Jim Moran said without being thrown out of office. The notion that our government is actually stating openly that it is their belief that the wealth we earn as workers in this country is not our own is shocking.

Let’s follow this line of thought a bit more here. If those who earn wealth are not entitled to keep it then we must be saying that it is not really theirs in the first place. If the wealth is not the property of the person who earned it, then we have to ask who actually owns it. Could it be the wealth of those to whom Congressman Moran wishes it to be redistributed? That explanation seems to fall apart as well. If it was their wealth, then there would be no laws against the poor simply going in and taking what “already belongs to them” back from those who have it. As laws do exist to prevent this, it would appear that the only other option is that the wealth belongs to the government itself. [And we should really remember to look at Moran’s words carefully here to see the true meaning of his words.] Remember, Moran is not really arguing for taxes here; but, rather specifically mentions “people who have wealth” in his comment. We are not merely talking about whether it is okay to tax higher wage earners; we are discussing whether those who have wealth in any form can have it taken away.

This belief can only come about as a direct result of a complete lack of understanding of the Constitution. It would be impossible to believe that Moran could miss the implication that ,by noting the Constitutional rights to “keep and bear arms,” be “secure in their Persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” be protected from “excessive fines,” etc…, the framers were not only acknowledging, but, rather codifying the idea of ownership of property and wealth. As this is the case, one must logically assume that Moran is either unfamiliar with the document that is supposed to guide his daily work, that he is incapable of understanding it, or that he is simply ignoring it. Either option here should be grounds for his removal from office.

The implications of Moran’s misguided belief are far reaching and widely destructive. If people are not entitled to keep wealth, one must question what this means for property ownership, 401k plans, Money Market accounts, etc….

Remember that this is not some fringe group nutcase here; this is Virginia’s Congressman from the 8^th Congressional district. He has been in office since the early 90s and continues to bring his misguided views to the House even now.

Where was the outrage here?

That sentiments like these can go unchallenged by those whom Moran represents suggests that there is at least some agreement as to its truth. This is perhaps the most frightening point of all.