The Violence Worker!

Europe Is Crumbling - Are We Next?

Much of Europe is teetering on financial collapse.  The amount of money needed to sustain their socialist welfare systems is exceeding their ability to generate enough taxes to feed the beast.  Simply put, their alligator diet far exceeds their lizard ability to provide.  Free healthcare, extravagant public pensions systems and generous welfare benefits are crushing the productive class.  The gravy train is coming off the tracks.

That's Europe, you say.  Well just how far behind them are we? 

Social Security is broke.  They are paying out more than they are taking in.  There is no lock box with your money safely stashed away.  That money is long gone.  Spent years ago.  There isn't anything left but an IOU in a binder in some office somewhere that says the government will pay it back.  The only money that Social Security now has is what you are contributing today.  LBJ opened up the lock box to fund his great society.  I read a good way of putting it once.  The government gives you an IOU buy printing a piece of paper and telling you they have the funds.  Sort of like you writing yourself an IOU for ten million dollars and then declaring yourself to be a millionaire.

Folks, we are tapped out and Washington and your state's only answer is to demand you pay more and more. 

Conservatives are often accused of being negative.  We are, if you listen to some on the left, against all of this progressive stuff they keep coming up with.  Oddly enough, one of their usual canards extolling the virtues of the socialist way is to bring up Social Security. We've tried to offer up solutions for the Social Security mess.  When we did, the liberals shot it down saying the system was fine. 

The bottom line to all of this is this:  We are approaching (if we haven't already reached it or even surpassed it) the point where our debt is unsustainable.  And by that I mean they can't tax us enough to pay for it.  My grandchildren already have a tax liability in the tens of thousands of dollars and they are seven years old and under.  Greece, Spain, and Ireland are already on the verge of collapse.  I suspect we are closer than we'd like to think.

We need to reduce spending.  Most of our spending is in the way of entitlements and frankly, we need to cut as much  as we can.  That even means me, I guess, since I get a government pension.  If that means it gets reduced, then so be it.  I'll take the pill with everyone else.

Our only real answer is to reduce the size of government and not just in nibbles, but huge bites.  When government employees are making thousands more than their civilian counterparts, we have a problem.  We also need to find a way to rein in this imperial Congress.  When Nancy Pelosi's liquor bill is more than I make in several years, we have a problem.  My company doesn't fund my beer tab, yet we apparently think it's necessary to keep Pelosi and her entourage well oiled with expensive hootch.  The Republicans are just as guilty at times thinking that we owe them all of their perks. 
The job was never meant to be a career.  Congressional pensions should be eliminated in favor of a cash payout equal to one year's pay at the end of two terms to compensate their retirement fund for their service.  If they stay after that, they get a base salary, no more retirement. 

At some point, you become a serf to the government.  You already are to some extent. Do you own your home?  Not really.  I don't care if you have a clear title and deed, you don't own it.  Don't pay your property taxes and see how quick the government takes it away from you.  The lord expects the serfs to pay tribute to live under his protection.

There ain't no free lunch, folks.  The government doesn't have its own money.  It has YOUR money.  It spends YOUR money and it takes YOUR money with the force of the law and a waiting jail cell if you don't give it to them when they ask.

The party is over and we just haven't left yet.  The hangover is coming.  Socialist Europe is crumbling and yet there are a lot of people who seem to want to push us toward that end.  Santayana admonished us that the lessons of history are often repeated if not learned.  Socialism has never worked and it won't work just because Barack Obama is now President.

VW

The Chicago Way?

One of the congresscritters Obama is trying to "persuade" to vote yes on his health scam bill has a brother.  Obama just announced that the brother was just nominated for a federal judgeship on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. From The Weekly Standard:

Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he's obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson's brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

John Hinderaker, of Powerline Fame and a practicing attorney says he doesn't think it's related.  

As to the Matheson nomination, I think the criticism is not well-founded. That doesn't mean that Obama didn't have one eye on Congressman Jim Matheson when he selected Professor Scott Matheson for the 10th Circuit. No one will ever know, probably. But Professor Matheson would be an ideal choice for Obama even if he didn't have a brother in Congress.

John goes on to say that Matheson is a qualified, albeit liberal, candidate in his own right and that very well may be the case. However, given the sordid reputation of Chicago/Illinois politics, it seems suspicious.

I may not be an attorney, but I have a sense of smell and this just doesn't smell like fresh fish.

VW

The Wheels Are Coming Off The Climate Change Cart

Climate change was never about controlling the climate.  It's all about controlling people.  The scientists used it to get grants and funding and the politicians saw an opportunity to get and maintain power.  They fed off of each other, becoming fat and lazy, assured that the public was becoming mollified and it almost worked.  The wheels started to fall off the climate change cart with the release of the East Anglia e-mails.  There were other clues, like the dire warning that the polar ice caps would disappear last summer or this summer.  They didn't and they won't and those scientists (who've tried to insist the science was settled) who tried to prove it were forced off the ice because it was colder than they anticipated.

Now we find out that the Himalayan Glaciers are here to stay as well.  

Guess the science isn't so settled after all.

I don't disbelieve in climate change.  Climates do change.  They've been changing since there was such a thing as a climate.  The difference is, I don't think it's anthropogenic. Over the eons, we see the evidence of global warming and cooling that happened long before man ever appeared on the scene.  Ice ages followed by warming periods ebbed and flowed, carving our land and forming our waterways.  A great example of warming and cooling is the Dry Falls near Grand Coulée in Washington State.  (I'know it's a Wikipedia link, but I believe it to be accurate)

The politicians see this as an opportunity to move us left.  Cap and trade and other schemes are all designed to limit growth and control us.  It's about taking individual freedom and liberty away from us and replacing it with some kind of socialist model.

They might have made it, but someone at East Anglia spilled the beans.

VW

All In The Family

Do you remember when Obama was running for POTUS and somebody somewhere took a rhetorical potshot at Michelle or something?  And do you remember Obama, standing up in righteous indignation, condemning whoever it was that raised the issue?  I don't recall who it was, but I actually agreed with Mr. Obama.  One's family should be off limits. 

The problem is, the left squeals like little piggies when it happens to them, but delight in trying to drag up dirt about a Republican's family.  Remember how they raided every waste bin in Wasilla looking for anything on Palin and her family with nary a peep of outrage from Obama?  Some dweeb named Andrew Sullivan (who gets paid a whole lot of money to write crap) still instists that Trig Palin is somehow Bristol's kid. 

All politicians parade the wife and kiddies.  That's what they do.  In essence, they  ALL try to pass themselves off as a "family values" kind of person at some level.  However, the left cries foul if you attack a family member, but sees no wrong in trying to attack a Republican's family and such is the case with Scott Brown.

First they dug up some photo spread of him posing nude 30 years ago.  OK, fair shot.  It was him, not his family.  Not many people cared.  We all probably did a lot of things thirty years ago we would rather not talk about.  Personally, I thought his participation was tasteless, but it happened thirty years ago.  People change a lot in 30 years.  As a young airman in the seventies, it was not uncommon on any given night to find me with my buddies, knee-walking, commode-hugging drunk.  Do I do that today?  Not even close.  Am I proud of doing that 35 years ago?  Not really. 

Next the left digs up some cheesy music video from the 80s that featured his wife.  She actually wore a *gasp* bikini in it!  And they dug up some  more recent family photo of his daughters in a bikini in Hawaii.  All of this is intended to make Mr. and Mrs. Family Values think twice about supporting Senator-elect Brown.  Note to the idiot left:  We don't care. 

The point is that it seems that family members are fair game only if it is the liberals who do it.  If we do it, it's wrong.  The truth is, it is wrong - for everyone.

It's gutter politics.  As I sit here and think about this, a question comes to mind.

Since this is the holy seat of Kennedy that Mr. Brown will soon defile, Can we bring up Chappaquiddick and what Teddy might have been doing 30 or 40 years ago for comparison? 

Just wondering.

VW

We Want Ice Cream!

There is a story floating around about an elementary school teacher who wants to teach her class about democracy so she decides to have the children elect a class president.  To distill the story, two kids emerge as the candidates. (For the whole story, go here and read it.)  One presents a serious platform and the other promises ICE CREAM.  The kids discuss the two and all they can talk about is getting ice cream.  The girl who promised the ice cream doesn't know any specifics about how she will fulfill her promise, but all the kids can think about is getting ice cream and she wins in a landslide.

And so it is with adults.  We essentially elected someone president who promised us "ice cream"  He didn't give us any specifics, but he promised ice cream.  Never mind that there is no money for any ice cream, we know we want it and by God, we were told we would get it!

We denounce those that have ice cream already as being greedy, but it's our own greed that drives us to try and forcibly take away the ice cream they earned.  We only have a small cup and they have a big bucket full.  We deserve to have part of theirs and we will use the force and might of the Federal Government to take it and redistribute it.

We are greedy.  Yes, rich men may be guilty of greed and they often are, but are we no different by demanding that we get some of theirs?  And for no better reason than we want it?

At what point do we step back and wonder about our own motives? 

We've spent ourselves into oblivion.  There is no money for anything and yet we, like squalling, obese infants, demand more from the empty teat of government.  We will suckle every last drop and if that isn't enough, we'll drain the very life out of it so that we can get more and more. 

We are broke and everyone in the world knows we are broke but us.  Why do you think the dollar is now gasping it's final breath as the dominant world currency?  But we want more...Gotta soak those rich guys a little bit more!  Gotta stop those greedy fat cats from getting all that money ice cream.  It's ours!

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's ice cream money."

Welcome to the end of the Republic. 

VW

Criticizing Obama

Anytime someone criticizes the President, it's racist.  The "Joker-Socialist" poster was acclaimed by the left to be racist for no other reason than it took a political shot at Obama.  Joe Wilson told the world during a speech that Obama was lying.  That was racist.  Wilson nailed it, but veracity is color blind.  Obama was lying and we all know it and Wilson had the cajones to say what most of us knew and called him on it.  His approach is not one I approved of, but I doubt race had anything to do with his outburst.

It's time we told the left to shove their race card up into their hinter quarters and tell them to shut up.  Obama is an avowed and open leftist and socialism is not America.  It has nothing to  do with race.  Jimmy Carter is as bad or worse than Obama.  Bad government and bad politicians come in all colors.  Obama and Carter are two of the worst.  It was Jimmy that made me a Republican!

Obama just caved to the Russians for nothing in return.  He is not making us safer.  You do not deal with the likes of Putin from a position of weakness.  In this poker game, you don't throw away your aces and hope your opponent does as well.  It's either madness, or it's idiocy.  Either way, we, as a country, are now less safe.

He lies and then lies again to try and save himself.  He's beginning to look like Bill Clinton on steroids.  I'm getting tired of the "First there is a public option, then there isn't then there is game. 

If I thought for that the government running health care would correct the problems we have, I'd be down at the nearest Democratic Office signing up in a New York minute.  Only the blind partisan thinks nationalized health care would work.  We can't even run Amtrack trains at break even.  We lose a billion a year there and people think the feds can run health care?  I gotta ask you how you can think they will run your health care if they can't even run the damned trains?

So again, take your race card and put it where the sun never shines.  It ain't even personal, it is my opinion and my right to criticize any politician I want.  

I hope that the American people are waking up to this whole race game.  I hope people will start seeing the race shills for who they are and that they are dealing the race card from the bottom.

/Rant

VW

"You Lie!"

During the President's speech in Congress today, Joe Wilson, a Congressman from South Carolina piped up and shouted, "You lie!" when Obama stated he didn't intend to insure illegal aliens.  Wilson is correct.  They intend to include everyone, but they know the average American is against it so they will lie to you and tell you it isn't so - even when they are busily including the language somewhere in the bill.

Wilson was out of line.  He was right to offer an apology for his outburst, but again, what he said was truth.  The liberals like to call it, "Speaking truth to power".  You see, it's OK to be rude and uncivil to the President if the President is a Republican.  It was not uncommon for the Democrats to boo and yell during Bush's state of the union messages.  And remember that guy who threw his shoe at Bush in Iraq?  He was hailed as a genuine hero by the left. 

The left makes the rules as they go along.  It was OK to make all kinds of Bush/Hitler comparisons and attack Palin's family.  It still is.  Don't you dare talk about Michell or his kids though.  Don't compare Obama to anyone with a negative connotation affixed to their name or you are a racist!  When the Joker Posters came out a couple of months ago, people were stretching so hard to get "racist" out of it, they probably pulled some tendons!

It's a glaring double standard that is frankly tiresome.  Yeah, Wilson shouldn't have done it, but it's not exactly beneath the Democrats either.

VW

Sarah Palin

The Democrats often complain about the "politics of personal destruction" when someone says something critical, but no one is as mean and nasty as the Democrats have been to Governor Palin and her family.

When Senator McCain announced her as his running mate, the press and the Democrat machine (often one and the same) went into high gear.  Dumpster diving and sewer swimming for any dirt they could find on the Palins, their relatives, friends and even their ancestors became a 24/7 operation.  Gossip was fact and rumor was king.  There was a huge double standard in the reporting and with Democrat surrogates:  Obama's family was off limits, but Governor Palin's family was somehow fair game.

One of the first lies out of the box was that her son, Trig, was not actually her son, it was her daughter's and she adopted him to cover up the fact that her daughter had a baby out of wedlock.  Except that Bristol was now pregnant and the timing made it impossible for her to have had Trig.  And when it was announced, Palin tried to show support for her daughter in the face of every idiot democrat in the country shouting "SCANDAL!!!11!!"  The Palins did what any parents would do and tried to put the best spin on an unfortunate situation and they were held up to scathing criticism. 

Once it became clear to most that Trig was Sarah's baby, most moved on to denounce her for either not aborting the little monster now in her care or for being a working mother.  "How could she care for her children with a full time job?", They bleated. Palin was even accused of believing in witches and wanting to burn them at the stake.

Even Hollywood got into the act.   Most notably (and recently) was the despicable David Letterman, saying she looks like a slut and joking about her underage daughter having sex with a ball player (and yes, it would have been just as tasteless even if it was meant for Bristol.  Who does that kind of "joke" and what kind of lowlife even finds it to be funny? 

Lawsuit after lawsuit was filed against her in Alaska charging her with every kind of ethical shortcoming .  Never mind that the ones reaching a judge were dismissed, that didn't matter.  The plan was to bankrupt her with endless legal fees and make it seem like she was some kind of criminal - worse than their own Blogojevich problem.  It didn't matter that she isn't crooked - it's important to make her look that way by filing lawsuit after lawsuit.

When she announced her resignation the other day, the left ran wild with rumors of FBI investigations.  Oh they just knew that she was gonna be "frog marched" right out of the governor's mansion - until the FBI said no, she is not under any investigation.

If she was simply going to quit, who could blame her.  After all, the left in this country has tried every wrench in their "politics of personal destruction" tool box to destroy her.

I (and most other people) don't think she's going to disappear.  I think in the next few months, we'll see the new "sarah-cuda"; ready to take the fight to the next level.

The left is afraid of her.  If they weren't, they wouldn't spend all the money, time and use every opinion vehicle they can find  to undermine her.  This will be interesting to watch.

VW

Cap and Trade Rhetoric

As many have often pointed out, words mean things.  All too often people try to denigrate their political opponents by making outlandish charges and unfortunately, both sides are guilty of hyperbole when it comes to taking a stand on a certain issue.

Paul Kugman is a prime example.

Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual?

Yes, it is — and that’s why it’s unforgivable.

"Climate denial" , according to Mr. Krugman, is now on the magnitude of treason.  Treason carries the maximum punishment of death.  U.S. Law also states that those convicted are forever ineligible to hold public office.  Is that what he really means?  Surely he knows the law at least as much as I do.

Henry Waxman, one of the authors the Cap and Trade bill said this:

"They [Republicans] want to play politics and see if they can keep any achievements from being accomplished that may be beneficial to the Democrats. They're rooting against the country and I think in this case, even rooting against the world because the world needs to get its act together to stop global warming."

At least he not accusing Republicans of being treasonous, but the point is there.  If we don't agree with him, we are somehow against the entire world.  We somehow want pollution and for everybody to die.  I don't think he really believes that, does he?

Yes, I've seen people calling those who support the bill "Cap and Traitors" and again, I think it's wrong headed to use that kind of language and does our cause no good.  Cap and Trade is anti-American in concept and execution.  It's utimate aim is to deprive the American people of freedom and economic prosperity.  Although proposing such an abominable piece of legislation such as this might be morally reprehensible, it is not illegal.  One might make a good argument that Cap and Trade me very well be unconstituional (and it probably is), but there is no law that I am aware of making that a crime either.

Fight the bill on principle, not with hyperbole.  Leave that to the Waxmans, Krugmans, and the hate-filled kiddies that inhabit the Democratic Underground.

VW

The Sotomayor Nomination

Most people don't realize the ramifications of a Presidential election.  For most people, their lives just go on.  Maybe a little harder, maybe a little easier, but mostly their lives are the same.  If their fortunes change at all, it isn't readily apparent.  This will be the case with the Sotomayor nomination to the Supreme Court.  It isn't going to change the balance of the court just yet, but if Obama get another pick (and he will), it will skew the court left - hard left.

When it changes, however, we'll see freedom slip away even faster.  This person should not be confirmed.  We all know that liberal judges will be selected, but this one is worth fighting.

The problem with Sotomayor isn't her ethnicity or her gender, it's the fact that she apparently sees both as a cudgel to wield in instead of a gavel.

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,”

Imagine if Chief Justice John Roberts once said that a white man would come to a better conclusion than (insert whatever minority here).  He would be tarred and feathered, run out of town and never heard from again.  Thus the double standard of the left.  However, It's not the double standard that's the problem.  The problem is how will that kind of thinking will change our law and freedoms?

Supreme Court Justices are supposed to base their opinions on the Constitution, not on the basis of their genitalia and/or melanin content.  If that is how her decisions will be based, we may as well pack it in and call it a day for this country.

Republicans should base their opposition on her statements, writings, ethics and decisions.  Leave abortion alone. We will not win on abortion.  All of you single issue ideologues need to understand that abortion as the sole criterion to choose a justice is a battle you cannot win.  Fight this nominee on the substance of her judicial history, not abortion.

VW