Mark Steyn is not a fan. Condom regulation is interwoven.
Regrets for that image.
For my own part, as I watch this nearly 3,000 page monstrosity heave itself towards the transom, I can’t help but have some contempt for the whole political process. The GOP seems eager to fight the bill as much to wound the president and his party in the next election than on the merits of the bill itself. Across the aisle, the Democrats seem as eager to simply deny the GOP the satisfaction of killing the bill than for any inherent goodness found within.
Too many arms have been twisted, too many bribes paid out, too many favored constituents cosseted.
When and if this passes, America will move much closer to the European Model of social welfare. Which to some folks will be reckoned progress. But I have just the two questions:
When America becomes Europe, who will be left to play the “American” role?
And was that the point all along?
Is not the point; it’s the beginning of the point. Much more ugliness to come, I’m afraid.
Unfortunately ManlyDad is all too correct. We are indeed headed for the statist European model by design. We are reaping the whirlwind of political alignment brought about by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which drove conservative southern Democrats out of the former Democratic “Solid South” and turned the South into a GOP redoubt–taking whatever moderating influence within the Donkey Party that once existed on the left liberal and far-left socialist democrats in Congress with them. “What we (now) have here.” (h/t Strother Martin) is more akin to the Parlimentary winner take-all system of the unconstrained majority–as opposed to the “checks & balances” system the original framers intended. Ultimately our only hope is the ballot box–and it better happen fast. This is because if the Dims succeed in legalizing the illegals and give them the vote in conjunction with their coordinated “Secretary of State” project to elect Dims to that State office to control the state election process and referee contested elections, not to mention ACORN/ACORN-CLONES plus SEIU efforts to steal elections, we are doomed. Presently our only faint hope to roll back some of this is the SCOTUS, but loss of that by now quite frankly political body–a second legislature, really–is only a heart-beat away as long as a Dim is President.
We had better get our collective act together–which for most of us here means doing EXACTLY what we all don’t want to do–re-enlist for another long-war fight taking our time, energy and money at a time in our lives when we are contemplating quiet retirement and a low-key life-style. Many here have been through two or three wars. Do we have enough energy–both psychic and physical–for another?
Apres moi, le deluge, folks?
There will be an empire, whether of us or of other lands.
Nebuchadnezzar’s legs of iron and feet of iron and clay have yet to walk.
The legs of iron have already passed with the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century. The feet of iron mixed with clay is with us now, they simply have not become a recognizable polity as yet. Soon, however, very soon.
We are only headed for the Euro-Loser status if we the people allow it to happen. I, for one, refuse to submit. There are many ways to sabotage the machinery of state, to keep it from crushing the people at the whims of it’s aristocratic masters. All perfectly legal, though likely to get some folks rightly peeved.
All it requires is the courage of your convictions, and the will to act.
Our ancestors possessed those traits and stood up to King George. Do we now have the same courage to stand up to L’Roi Obama?
I look at my young daughter and ask myself what will happen to her if I were to take a stand. then I think of what sort of example I would be if I failed to act?
My country has given me much, and asked little of me in return. Now Columbia is hard pressed by those who would replace our republic with a plantation aristocracy, and she needs our help. She is asking much of us, for certain, but it seems to me that the choice we each face should be easily made.
We are free men. We will only remain so through our own efforts.
May God bless these United Sates.
I am hoping that the hubris of The Won and his omega-male sycophants in congress will finally get the attention of the voting public vis-a-vis the gramscian march that has been taking place in this land since Woodrow Wilson.
If not, the Republic is doomed.
I for one will not vote for a single democrat for the rest of my life, regardless of the office. That party is totally suborned. The republicans are a close second, but at least have a few redeeming principles (if they can remember them).
Omega Male? Is that a code word for Barney Frank and those of his ilk, or are you simply talking metrosexual?
But today’s Wall Street Journal has a long story about those nations who now feel free to snub us. All that nuanced diplomacy ain’t doing much for us.
I’m faced with a dilemna in the voting booth. I’ve been a registered Democrat all my life–but haven’t voted that way in a long time. But I have now become a member of my own party “Anti Incumbent”. If you’re in office now, I don’t want you there next term. It would be tough for me in California if my Anti Incumbent stance meant I had to vote against a Republican, but the good citizens here in the “Granola State” [once you've got rid of the fruits and nuts, all that is left are the flakes] won’t give me that opportunity. Just Democrat ducks in the voting gallery shooting booth.
I like Switzerland: a reasonable European state.
And you, America, that passion made you. You were not born to prosperity, you were born to love freedom.
You did not say “en masse,” you said “independence.” But we cannot have all the luxuries and freedom also.
Freedom is poor and laborious; that torch is not safe but hungry, and often requires blood for its fuel.
You will tame it against it burn too clearly, you will hood it like a kept hawk, you will perch it on the wrist of Caesar.
But keep the tradition, conserve the forms, the observances, keep the spot sore. Be great, carve deep your heel-marks.
The states of the next age will no doubt remember you, and edge their love of freedom with contempt of luxury.
Of course, leaving no one able to play the American role was the point all along.
During the campaign Obama made several ambiguous comments, such as (and I’m paraphrasing as best I can here) that “no nation can maintain it’s military predominance unless it maintains its economic predominance.” This was when he waas touting his economic program. Given that most people presumed during the campaign that Obama wanted to “fix” the economy, you could read that as saying he was in favor of both.
Now, you could also say that I was looking at it through my own anti-Obama prism. But I’m a small businessman. And if you want to be successful, theres an old adage, “lose your opinion, not your money,” you’ve got to keep in mind. So I looked at his program with an open mind, and concluded it couldn’t possibly work. At the time I saw it as just class warfare disguised as an economic policy, intended to put on a show for economic illiterates. It gives Obama cover to say things like “look, I gave these guys all kinds of help, and the greedy profiteers still not giving you jobs.”
For example, one of his campaign promises to help small business was to reduce their capital gains taxes. What??
I’m in the restaurant business. I have equipment that depreciates. I don’t have a business that invests in anything that would have capital appreciation. I do know many restaurants that own their own building and land. They could benefit. But only if you drive them out of business so they had to realize the capital gain from the sale of their property.
I’m not an expert about other kinds of businesses so I asked around, and the consensus is there are relatively speaking very few types of businesses that would be helped by a cut in capital gains taxes.
It’s like saying you’re going to help senior citizens with their health care costs, and one of your feature proposals is to give them free birth control for life.
Well, there may be a few 75 year old guys who are banging girls who could have, but don’t want, kids. But would this really help most of the elderly?
Same with tax credits for hiring workers who have been out of work 60 days or longer. This will help people who hire seasonally. If I owned a fish cannery in AK, I’d love the idea that I get a bunch of tax credits for hiring college kids who don’t work during the school year. Plus the new “jobs bill” provision that relieves me of some of the payroll taxes through December.
But permanent workers? Hell no. I’m not putting someone on the payroll for a temporary tax credit/holiday. And I’m sure not going to decide against hiring a better prospect who’s only been out of work for a month to hire someone less qualified because they’ve been unemployed long enough to qualify.
I know that’s going the long way around the barn. But the bottom line is that when I took an objective look at what Obama “help” he was going to give me, it was exactly none. There were only about 4 proposals, I’ve discussed 2. The other 2 were equally nonsensical but I don’t recall the details as they just weren’t that significant.
Then I looked at his energy policy, cap & trade, healthcare, etc., and realized they are all job killers. So, I knew in 2008 that he had no intention of improving the economy.
That, in combination with the fact that all his close associates blame the US and its economic/military pre-eminence for all the trouble in the world, and the conclusion was obvious. Since no nation can maintain its military strengh without economic strength, weakening the US economy was the goal.
Don’t you think it’s sort of obvious, when those on the left argue for Obamacare by saying they’d rather spend the trillions here at home than on war? It’s just he old guns & butter argument. You can’t spend the money on guns if you spend it on butter.
Even if it’s rancid butter that can’t feed anyone. It’s still not going to guns.
Sorry for the long comment.
Spy,
No need to apologize for a thoughtful analysis. I’d had similar thoughts but never took the time to put them down on paper as you did.
Our country would be much better off today if some of the 52% of the voting public had been as smart as you. Actually, now that I think of what I just wrote, we’d have been better off if as few as 4% of them had been as smart as you. Looking back, I’ll bet that a lot more than that now wish they’d seen him for what he is (and isn’t).
Thanks for your analysis. Have you thought about a letter to the editor of your local paper?
Regards,
Mike
Uncle Mike, in the part of Texas I’ve moved to since leaving the Navy I’d be preaching to the choir.
I’m originally from CA, but I fit in much better here. So does my gun collection.
Spy,
I suppose that Texas would be a much better fit for many of us left in California. But family ties, etc. . . .
Once you break off to form a free and independent nation, you may find many of us flooding your way and seeking citizenship (legally of course).
Regards,
Mike
Friends … Jefferson said it. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Let’s hope it won’t come to that. Foxnews reports that so far thirty-eight states, with Virginia in the lead, are planning to pass [or already have passed] legislation to make the Obamacare bill illegal in their states. Where are the rest of them, for gosh sakes?
Marianne — who’s feeling thirsty for the blood of tyrants…
Marianne – can I share a cup with you?
Obama has no intention of reviving the economy — all his actions illustrate the exact opposite.
Wait until he announces the budget cuts in defense to help defray the costs of “health care reform.” We used to joke that under Carter, we might be able to beat Monaco — in two years, we’ll make Vatican City look like a superpower.
Bill, that’s what hurts so much. I remember, under Carter, having to draw lots amongst our aircrews to see who got to drop the warshots for that year. We were authorized TWO live torpedoes for training. The rest of the crews had to qualify in the simulators.
Our flight hours were cut down so much that we were in danger of falling out of compliance for aircrew time. We had to take extra crewmen along, and give them time in the seats, in order to keep folks current.
Carter was a disaster for our military, and Obama is even worse with his defense cuts to date.
Tim,
I remember those days only too well. It was just as bad in the Army.
Sadly, Carter was a disaster for more than just our military.
And Obama’s trying to trump him.
Regards,
Mike
Under Jimmeh Cottuh, us’ns in the Joisey Guard used to pray that we didn’t get hit with a mid-season hurricane, because by June, we were out of money for fuel and parts.
No fuel = no aerial flood rescue capability.
Instructor pilots flew once every 60 days so that they’d be current when it came time to get everybody else flying again after 1 October.
You see, this is where Obama reveals his hand.
Does anyone besides me remember the “Keynesian” line of B.S. the administration was spewing about this time last year? You know, that massive government spending was “stimulative.” This was in response to critics saying that a lot of the spending wasn’t targeted toward anything productive. The administration and its defenders said it didn’t need to be.
It didn’t matter if we were paying people to dig holes, they said, and then paying others to come along to fill them in. As long as the government was pumping money into the economy it was deemed “stimulative.” Subsidizing make-work projects so that people with paychecks would spend would, we were told, have a ripple effect. That’s what “stimulus” was all about.
I even recall many people saying it was FDR’s spending on armaments that finally pulled us out the great depression. The earlier attempts didn’t work because they were too small. But the spending during WWII worked because it was so huge.
The proponents of this theory were saying that we could have pushed all the aircraft coming off the assembly line into the sea and it would have had the desired stimulative effect on the economy.
Well, if that’s true, why did we cancel the F-22? How come defense spending is the only kind of spending we can’t afford?
If the administration’s Keynesians are right, we can keep the workers on the assembly lines fully employed building F-22s we’ll never use, dump them in the ocean or recycle them as we please, and we’ll be stimulating the economy.
Somehow, I don’t think they believed their own B.S. about their own stimulus package back then. If they did, we’d be awash in Raptors. That project wasn’t just “shovel ready” it was actually in production.
Apparently they aren’t committed to their “stimulus” rationale that pumping money into the economy through publicly subsidized employment, regardless of the usefullness of the product.
So what are they committed to do? I’d say, we all understand the answer to that.
In Germany they were worried about issuing ammo for small arms quals because they weren’t sure they would go down range or be used in a race war.
My brother was a tanker at Elvis old Kaserne and they made trips to Graf without being fully funded for fuel or ammo. His letters home reflected the anger that existed among the troops at the time with Ivan just over the line in Fulda.
Buy ammo, gold, food and seed. before it’s over you’ll need all four.
QM — remember this one, from about 1980?
Reporter: “If the Soviets roll across the FRG border, what will they need to reach the English Channel?”
Four-star: “Shoes.”
Yep, I sure do. It was only half in jest is the bad part. The only thing that kept Ivan back from a Bavarian vacation was they were as bad off as we were.
When I was in we used to say we were so screwed up we couldn’t even defeat the Paraguayan Air Force–and that was under Nixon. Little did I know that one day I would look back fondly on our parity with Paraguay in those days as the zenith of our power. Now were headed down on a par with the Vatican? “Progress is our most important product.” Oh yeah…
BillT/
appropos of the comment about shoes, after I left the UK the AF decided to base USAFE A-10s at my old base in the UK rather that across the channel where they were really needed on the continent for cas for the Army. When I was on the horn to a buddy still back at my former base I asked what the hell good that would do, as fully loaded for bear the combat radius of those things was so short they’d do little good based over in the UK. “Hell,” he replied, “they only have to reach Dunkirk..” LOL!!
This bill, whatever is in it (where are those days of review before signing?), is just the nose of the camel. It will be changed, amended, updated, manipulated, and finally morphed in to the single-payer centralized system they really want. It will happen a little at a time, year by year. This is potentially the end of capitalism in the U.S., because taxes for health care will grow every exponentially, eating any profits that an individual or company can produce.
That’s why it is so important to those currently in power. It will consolidate their control over the remains of the economy.
Being now firmly planted in the envrons of N VA I got up early and found myself on the West SIde of the Capital at 10AM in the midst of a growing throng of protesters. I did see amoung the thousands of hand made signs one or tow objectinable in there declaration that Congressman Frank was a sexual deviant or similar bigoted statements.
That vast majority of the 20,000 plus (based on my comparison of the numbers of people to what I envisioned a football stadium of such size to hold) we respectful, angry, even fearful of the contents of the legislation that, being so proud of hoisting on the electorate, the Democrats seem even less reluctant to want to talk about save cynical claims of “the moral imperative of providing health care to the uninsured” as if we have millions dying in the streets today and “we will control the evil insurance companies” as if, the costs they are required to reimburse are somehow magically set by “them”.
The demonization of those who oppose this based on reasonable objections to creating of, yet another, un or under-funded entitlement the very week the Social Security Administration announces the system will go cash negative next year requiring yet more borrowing to insure the checks still cash is callous and cynical beyone anything witnessed in the long history of the Repubic.
The respect, call it almost reverence, offered when the crowd sang the National Anthem betrayed, not angry anarchy in the making as some news organizations chose to characterize the meeting but, ordinary Americans wth no ax to grind but fear of what has become of our country. That veterans in the crowd were asked to render a military salute, of which many did with precision recalling the Corps at West Point, was called for so that those civilians among the ctrowd could turn and thank them upon the Anthem’s conslusion was not done to sew the cords of discord but to remind us that the freedom celebnrated was not without its sacrifices – some much more than others.
Yes their was firely partisan rhetoric, angry demands for electoral recrimination on many of the signs displayed. But I was stuck by the number and variety of signs that invoked the words of the Founders – Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, Madison and the rest, providing reminders, reminders srely needed it would seem, that the const of the governed is necessary for our experiemnt to suceed.
Also clearly expressed or more properly “felt” was the sentiment of the crowd that our Heath Care System needs to be changed and its affordability and accessability are importaant elements ensuring domestic tranquilty and the ongoing enablement of “the pursuit of happiness”
Despite all this the President, not two hours later continues in full campaign mode, insisting that those who dare oppose the travesty he and his party have hoisted upon us, as just bing tools of greedy insurance companies.
He knows that is not true and just doesn’t give a damn.
That is the most chilling relization of all.
PS: The WaPo lead on the front page an article describing some nasty incidents that happened later in teh day where racial and anti-gay taunts were yelled at some members of congress ending by noting their were “a few thousand” protesters gathered on the lawn. Ignoring the obvious fact that it was at least a few 10s of thousands and that people came from as far as California (some 800 from San Diego according to one speaker who acknowledged them) not to riot, not to tear down, but to simply make their voices heard even as Congress and this President refuse to hear.
OldT6/
e-mail me your new phone #
The WaPo lead on the front page … ending by noting their were “a few thousand” protesters gathered on the lawn. Ignoring the obvious fact that it was at least a few 10s of thousands…
Standard MSM tactic at any rally. Push the numbers down, and the reader gets the impression it was no big deal — push the numbers up, and the reader believes the cause has the backing of most of his fellow citizens.
In May 1971, Hanoi Jane took her FTA protest to the main gate at Ft. Dix. I was assigned to fly a DA photographer over the protest in an OH-13. There were maybe seventy-five people waving signs, but the AP photog present staged his shots to give the impression of a vastly-larger crowd.
Care to guess which picture made the front page the next day — the official DA aerial photo or the AP pic — or what the estimate of the protesters’ numbers were?
The fact that offensive comments were the headline is not surprising. It doesn’t matter that the vast majority were well behaved and sincere.
The script was written long before the protest.
These rulers are looking for reasons to ignore the ruled.
They will find them, even if they have to make them up.
And they don’t hesitate to make them up as they go.