The Conceit of Socialism, The Arrogance of Obama

As unemployment crests 10% and continue to climb, as layoffs continue by companies of all sizes who are tightening belts and trimming budgets, as banks continue to be tight-fisted about credit and loans, you have to kind of wonder who’s at the wheel here? Despite billions of “stimulus” dollars, despite lofty rhetoric and glowing promises the economy continues to struggle onward, slowing inexorably like a truck with two flat tires just trying to make the next exit.

There’s really only two possibilities here: 1) The people in charge don’t know what they are doing, or 2) They know EXACTLY what they are doing.

The simple reality of this, to me, is that nobody can be THAT stupid. So something else has to be going on. When “environmentalism” trumps basic quality of life, and no one seems to care, I suggest that we’ve got a problem on our hands. We are seeing the symptoms all around us of something akin to letting the inmates run the asylum.  Obama’s policies and politics are causing more and more people to scratch their collective heads, wondering just what exactly is going on with this man?

His actions show either a fundamental ignorance of, or a fundamental disregard for the simple realities of our economic system. I propose the latter is at play, much more than the former. His approach chooses to ignore the reality that consumer confidence is a core element of economic health and success in this country. It shows a willingness to overlook the fact that ever-higher and broader taxes are anathema to generating the kind of disposable income that allows people to buy the goods and services which keep our industry and economy running.

For example, when you set out to “bankrupt” the coal industry (as Obama so openly advocated), you aren’t just shutting down the coal plants. You are shutting down the mines, putting the miners and their families out of business. You are shutting down the coal processing plants. You are shutting down the trucking companies that move the coal from the mines to the processing plant, and from there to the plants that burn it for energy. You are gut-punching the industries that support these efforts, and the towns that house the people that do these jobs. Not only that, but you are forcing increases in the cost of basic services like electricity down onto people that can least afford it…the poor and (now) unemployed!

This is part of the conceit you see in Obama’s approach to things. There is a certain ideological arrogance behind all these moves towards a more socialist state; the idea that such suffering is inevitable, and simply must be born in the pursuit of this brave new world.

At it’s core, though, is a belief running so deep, something so much a part of the core personality that it cannot even be called arrogance; perhaps something more like blind delusion? It’s the elitist belief in the superiority of “your betters.” It is this very elitism which puts the lie to all the grandiose dreams of “equality” and “fairness” under socialism. Socialism requires a ruling class, those exalted and educated political elites who see themselves as burdened not with a sacred trust and stewardship of those who elected them, but rather, with a noble obligation, a calling even, to lead the suffering and under-informed masses into a new era of enlightened Progress.

Sadly, far too few of those teeming masses really understand what is good for them, so few truly comprehend what they SHOULD be willing to sacrifice for the greater good…and so those sacrifices will have to be made for them. It is simply “unavoidable” that heavier and heavier taxes will be taken from them, those rights and privileges deemed unnecessary or inconvenient will be swept aside to clear the way for Progress, and those individuals or groups who continue to resist will be marginalized, ostracized, or even imprisoned. History has shown this to be incontrovertibly true.

Sacrifices will be necessary of course. There will be some “discomfort” with this “transition.” And even if YOU don’t see the rhyme or reason behind any of it, trust that “your betters” do, and have the situation well in hand.

This is the conceit of Obama and his administration. They see themselves as better equipped and informed than “the people” to make those hard decisions. So if it seems like Washington isn’t listening, it’s because they aren’t. If it seems like our voices are being tuned out, or worse suppressed, it’s because they are. Why? Because our betters know better. Our leaders have taken this mandate for “change” and moved beyond the need for anything like accountability to the masses.

As you watch him make his speeches, as you watch him make his choices of friends and allies, as you see what decisions he makes quickly, and which ones he seems to delay or “consider” for quite a while, you should come to understand that Obama seems himself not as the leader of a group, but as the captain of a ship. One that does not ask the passengers where they wish to go, but instead “knows best” where to steer the ship, and the masses below decks are just along for the ride.

The problem is, he’s heading us right for an iceberg, but keeps calling down to the engine room for more steam!

It’s not just that Pres. Obama is a poor leader, but that he’s leading us in the wrong direction. The ideological conceit that is so bound up in all socialist leaders’ “visions” of the future, has taken such a hold of Pres. Obama that he genuinely seems to see himself as above such mundane concerns as doing what’s best for the country (say, perhaps, economically) but rather, what MUST happen in order to bring about HIS concepts of ideological change.

This is a very dangerous attitude for someone with the kind of power the President of the United States can wield…or abuse. Given the historical reluctance of Congress to impeach a sitting president, Obama may be allowed far too much latitude in his efforts before people wake up enough to realize what is happening/has happened to them.

People lived in a stable, prosperous functioning representative republic that has served as a beacon of hope and freedom for the world for over 230 years. And yet they clamored for it to “CHANGE!”

Be careful what you ask for…

My Thoughts on Ft. Hood and Two-Gun Hasan

It is disheartening to read all the various apologia and hand-wringing conjecture going on about what REALLY caused (Maj) Hasan to go all Al Qaeda at Ft. Hood. Some have even taken to invoking the Klebold Defense, something to the effect that he was bullied because he was a Muslim, he was a social outcast, dey huwt ‘is widdle feewings, and other such crap.

For one, the Klebold Defense just doesn’t hold up. As we are finding out, much to our chagrin and detriment, there is simply no way for an ongoing pattern of discrimination to have survived the light of day in today’s Army. One WHIFF of a “hostile” work environment, off-color joke, or discriminatory word or action based on race or religion, and all Hasan would have had to do was notify his chain of command, and it is instantly guilty-until-proven-innocent for whomever he identified as the culprit. Today’s diversity-sensitized military gets an instant case of the vapors if anyone cast the least “unjustified” aspersion on a minority co-worker; something which may very well have prevented Hasan from being properly identified as a threat before it was too late. So to suggest that poor old Nidal was somehow the victim here is pure, festering codswallop.

Even IF poor old Hasan really was being “persecuted,” it was probably not because he was a Muslim, but because he was openly advocating opposing deployments to Iraq to a group of people who most likely already had two or three deployments under their respective belts. I also suspect that listening to some medical corps whiner whinge on about how Muslims shouldn’t fight Muslims, after they’ve had to sponge up the aftermath of yet another Muslim suicide bomber in a market square full of Muslim women and children, probably didn’t go over too well.

There’s also some buzz about how his yelling “Allahu Akbar” before going on a shooting spree doesn’t necessarily make him a terrorist. Uh, actually, yeah, it sorta does. Holding this view doesn’t make one a racist, or a hater or a bigot. It’s merely a conditioned response, one conditioned in us by the terrorists themselves.

I mean, face it. If you are standing in line at McDonalds, and a middle-eastern looking gentlemen walks through the door yelling, “Allahu Akbar!!” at the top of his lungs, you probably don’t “jump to the conclusion” that he’s just excited about American fast food and wants to buy everyone fries and a shake. You figure that some pretty major violence is soon to follow, and so you promptly hit the floor or run screaming for the exits. Why? BECAUSE THAT’S THE WAY IT USUALLY HAPPENS! Time and again we’ve been exposed to news reports of militant Islamicists firing off an “Allahu Akbar” before firing off their AK-47 or bomb belt. It happens a lot, so we begin to expect it. It’s become a conditioned response. We’ve come to take that phrase as a warning sign foretelling violence, not a sign of impending religious piety.

“Allahu Akbar” is not the equivalent of a western “Praise the Lord.”  No, sadly, yelling “Allahu Akbar” has now become the Islamic equivalent of yelling “Fire in the HOLE!”

Boom.

It is also unfortunate that there is an undeniable truth to the statement that while not all Muslims are terrorists, almost all terrorists have some tie to Islam. It cannot be ignored or wished away. And actions like those of two-gun Hasan at Ft. Hood only serve to reinforce this view in us slack-jawed redneck haters who don’t know no better.

234 Years Young

This is one of the best Birthday Messages I’ve seen.  Worth the watch, even if you ain’t one of the Few.

Semper Fi, Marines.

What About My RIGHT To A Nice Lawn?!

As the Democrat-controlled Congress churns and grinds its inexorable way towards enshrining socialized medicine into the American lexicon and socio-economic structure, I find myself wondering what other “rights” we can expect our Progressive overseers to legislate into law over the next four years?

More than that, I am curious as to how health care became an “inalienable” right guaranteed by the Constitution?

See, here’s the deal. Say I’m too damn lazy or broken down or busy to mow my own lawn. The thing’s looking pretty scruffy, the wife is all up in my knickers because of how it’ll look to the neighbors, and soon I could start making a little extra money running safaris through the back yard. So, I hoodwink one of the neighborhood teens to do it for me. And you know what? I fully expect that I am going to have to pay him to mow it for me.

Say I need my house painted, my car tuned up, or my appendix removed. Do I expect that somehow it’s my “right” to have a freshly pained house? Do I expect that there is “someone” out there who is morally obligated to overhaul my small-block Chevy for me just because I’m a helluva guy? Moreover, what kind of quality can I really expect from someone willing to do it or free? I’m reminded of the old car care commercial that shows the inbred goober playing with the water house, who drools out the statement, “Lemme try, boss. I’ve always wanted to fix a transmission!”

No, in this society, in this economy, I fully expect that having a trained, competent, and experienced mechanic fix my truck is going to cost me a pretty decent chunk of change. To hire someone to paint my house who won’t make a complete nightmare of the job is going to cost me some pretty serious cash. And to have one of my internal organs removed, an MRI of my brain, or a chunk of burgeoning skin cancer excised from my arm are things for which I should reasonably be expected to pay as well, right?

Do I really want my health and life put in the hands of the lowest bidder? There is a very simple and nearly immutable truth which I have seen borne out time and again in this life; whether it relates to cars, or VCRs, hookers or housepainters, the inescapable reality is that more often than not, you really DO get what you pay for!

Is it really realistic that we should expect anything different from our health care providers? Can we realistically expand coverage nearly three-fold without a commensurate increase in doctors and nurses, clinic and hospital beds, all the while promising that it’s going to cost less? Seriously?

I don’t expect to be provided free lawn care as some sort of right. That teenage do-gooder provides a service, he expects to be paid for it. I don’t expect that my right to comprehensive auto maintenance is enshrined in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. And yet, apparently my “right” to a free colonoscopy is immutable and inalienable, right up their with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Wait a sec. “Liberty.” Hmmm. Liberty is a guaranteed right. Can’t argue with that. Synonymous with “Freedom.” What about when my government forces me to spend thousands per year on insurance I may not want or need, or face prison? Is that Liberty? Is that Freedom?

According to Dictionary.com, “Liberty” is defined as:

~ freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
~ freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.
~ The condition of being physically and legally free from confinement, servitude, or forced labor.
~ A right or immunity to engage in certain actions (or NOT engage, I would submit) without control or interference:

Notice that you can’t define liberty without using the word “freedom.”

The big tear-jerking heart-string puller in all this is that everyone should have “access” to health care. Newsflash: everyone already DOES have access to health care, they just may not be able to afford it. There is this meme that millions of Americans are being “denied” health care, as in prevented “back of the bus” style from purchasing health care, relegated to second-class status behind the “rich people only” health care system.

Another news flash: The more you pay, the better plan you get. This is not “unfair,” is basic economics. I don’t whine that it’s “unfair” that I can’t buy a Mazerati for what it costs me to finance my Impreza, right?

I’ve been on the outs. I’ve struggled to pay for health insurance, eating hefty co-pays for mediocre coverage. It sucked. That doesn’t mean I had a “right” to anything better, it just meant that that was all I could afford at the time. But it wasn’t any official law, or policy, or armed thug that was “denying” me better health care; it was my paycheck. In effect, the only person “denying” me better health care was me.

Since then, I’ve gotten a better job, so I can afford better health benefits.

I find it tragic that we, as a nation, have developed such an overweening sense of entitlement that we are so readily able to turn such a blind eye to the basics of economic realities in our pursuit of gifts given, not benefits earned.

Governments do not provide freedom. A government merely helps ensure an environment wherein freedom CAN flourish if allowed to. However, true “freedom” is not obtained “from” government, it is instead achieved by those who require it from themselves and others. What so many fail…or refuse…to see is that government can become the enemy of freedom, for the more we require from it, the more it will, in turn, require from us.

True freedom is found in self-sufficiency, in personal responsibility, and moral fortitude. Too readily forsaking any one of those three in exchange for unearned largesse or unwarranted comfort is a certain path towards becoming “subjects” rather than “citizens.

It’s Official – We’re a One-Party System Now

In case you didn’t hear (http://tinyurl.com/yznskn3), Sen. Barbara Boxer shoved her Cap-n-Trade bill through and out of committee without the irritating hindrance of opposition by any Republicans. How you might ask? She simply didn’t invite them. Much easier, smoother, more streamlined process that way. No more pesky “debates” and no questions or worries about inter-party accountability. Nope. Just make sure you have a unanimous majority and then ask for a show of hands? Really? No dissenters? Well, I guess we’re done here then!

“said Boxer. ‘The majority has to be able to do its work…otherwise the whole Senate could come to a screeching halt.’

That’s right. Because they have a MANDATE don’t you know. And can’t let a little thing like bipartisanship, established precedent, or, you know, the rule of law to stand in the way of PROGRESS! And what better way to get what you want that to make sure no one else has a say in the process? Why follow the rules when it gets in the way of doing what you want, right?

Democrats only stick up for minorities when it suits their political purpose. If not, then majority rule is just honky-dory and the minority just needs to get on board and deal with it. How truly “progressive.”

This woman should be at a minimum censured, and fined, arrested or just plain impeached.

H/T to Gateway Pundit (http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/)

NOW they tell me…

I can post by email? Who knew?

The new censorship

“Media Justice” is now the authorize, approved, and socially acceptable term for “censorship.”

Please update your spell checker and thesaurus.

Mindless Ramblings and General Blitherings

I have this vague sense that sitting at my desk, drinking Cherry Coke and wolfing down Honey BBQ Fritos by the fistful while surfing slightly off-kilter webcomics isn’t exactly what I’m getting paid to do.  But oh well.

I find this webcomic strangely compelling.
http://bunny-comic.com

I was thinking of starting my own webcomic, but then I realized I can’t draw, and I’m really not all that funny.  And then I also realized that that probably makes me a perfect candidate.

I’m also thinking of getting into writing fan fiction for “Man vs. Food.“

I don’t know why, but I find this cartoon to be absolutely hilarious:

Ever have one of those days where you feel like you’ve gone too far off the game’s track until hit the edge of the map and it suddenly throws you, like, a mile and a half straight up and, like, six miles away, and you land with the motorcycle on top of you and if it were real life you’d have punctured your lungs with your shin bones, but it’s not, so you just respawn 14 seconds later, but of course, being the day like it is, you respawn in the middle of the enemy base and are instantly tagged with, like, 37 laser-guided BFG rounds?

Yeah, me neither.

Shades of Samurai Jack…
http://www.chainsawsuit.com/20080505.shtml
ROTFLMAOSCOMM
(Rollin’ on the floor, laughing my ass off, spewing coffee on my monitor)

• You know you’re getting old when you’ve got more hair in your ears than on your head.

Also, really dang hilarious:

Bwanahaha!

I also like this comic (Questionable Content - noooo, that’s the name, not a warning).  I’ve become a regular reader…at least until the Firewall Fascists at work figure out blocking *.webcomic

I like the comic because, well, mostly because the girls are hot, and I’ve sort of always had a thing for hot cartoon chics.  These girls are like Jan from Day-By-Day, only slightly less well-adjusted.  Just as well-endowed, yes, but well-adjusted? Not so much.  It’s like finally being able to look inside the mind of that neurotically insecure and slightly mental girlfriend you had in college but could never really figure out, who you finally dumped but still think about occasionally and wonder if she ever managed to get a real job or ended up working in a coffee-shop, writing bad emo-poetry and posting it to a really poorly laid out blog where she’s always blegging for hits on her tip jar so she can afford to buy a new fan belt for her car and finally get outta the city?

I mean, other people do DO that, right?

A Little Perspective Is Called For, I Think.

I’ve seen several lists of Obama’s failures that include his “betrayal” of Poland over the whole missile defense thing.  Here’s the deal:  It wasn’t him, and it wasn’t a betrayal.

What happened was that Obama accepted the recommendation of his Secretary of Defense to adopt a different method of strategic missile defense based around Aegis guided missile cruisers using enhanced surface-to-air missiles rather than the more static and easier to target ground-based PAC-IIIs.  Which, by the way, Poland is still getting based on the Bush-era agreements.

Obama hasn’t betrayed Poland.  The US military has devised a better, more capable and more responsive system to deal with the threat than was available when the original missile defense program was agreed to, and so the agreement was simply modified to take into account the new technology and tactics.  It actually gives BETTER coverage for the European theater than previous system.

So, while there’s plenty of stuff to lay at Obama’s doorstep, let’s make sure that we are fighting the right fights, and not tilting at windmills, and getting ourselves a slapped with a well-deserved ODS label.

Also, I have to agree, at least in principle, with Obama’s decision not to arbitrarily throw more troops at a bad situation without a solid, comprehensive, ground-up review of the overall strategy and operational goals in Afghanistan.  That said, I do readily fault Obama for spending more time with late-night talk show hosts and the Olympic committee than with his strategic commanders on the ground.

I mean, if Obama can drop everything and spend millions in taxpayers dollars hauling him and his wife on an ultimately fruitless junket to Europe to try and get the Olympics for Chicago, you’d think he could fly a few more hours into the CENTCOM AOR and actually sit-down face-to-face with the man on the ground of what is currently our most contentious conflict, and the one most fraught with the potential for failure. Wouldn’t you?  Wouldn’t you think a Commander in Chief might be convinced to do that sometime within the first YEAR of his presidency?

David Letterman? Sure. Jay Leno?  All the time in the world?  General, uh, whats-is-name, yeah, have your people call my people, we’ll do a VTC.

Grrr.

Forget the Birth Certificate…

…I want to see Nature’s Engineering Degree!

Yet another installment of, “How an Incredible Design TOTALLY Supports the Theory of Evolution!”  Courtesy of Wired Magazine.

High-Speed Video of Locusts Could Help Make Better Flying Robots

Oh how I long for the day when the evolutionist crowd can manage to kick out some puff piece without anthropomorphizing inanimate objects or non-sentient critters.  But that day is not today.

Even though researchers have been studying how insects and other creatures fly for a long time, “we still don’t completely understand the aerodynamics and architectures of wings,” comments Tom Daniel of the University of Washington in Seattle

Because, you know, the best minds in modern science and engineering still struggle to understand just HOW all these things work, given that they all came about through random chance.  Design? We understand. Blueprints?  No problem.  Complex computer algorithms and microchips? Got it handled.  How a hummingbird really works?  Not a clue.

What locusts lack in agility, they make up for in distance: the four-winged insects are built to fly hundreds of miles at a time.

D’oh!  We should make this into a drinking game.  Any time an article nominally in support of evolution uses the words, “built” or  “designed” you have to take a swig.

Most earlier models of insect flight relied on stiff, straight wings, overlooking the important effects of flexibility and shape, says Thomas. “Engineers like these things simple,” he says. But this new study shows that wings with a little flop can actually get more air-pushing lift from each flap.

Hmmm.  Engineers learning from nature.  Amazing what that random optimization thing can do for you, eh?

Figuring out the details of how locusts and other insects fly may help researchers design tiny robotic fliers. “There is a growing interest in the exploration of micro air vehicles,” says Daniel. “Nature’s designs may be useful in creating synthetic ones.”

DRINK!

It is amazing to me that engineers can’t seem to recognize the work of a fellow designer.  It’s like someone who want’s to design a better timepiece looking at a fine Swiss watch for ideas, without ever acknowledging or addressing the question of the origin of the original design.

Whatever lets you sleep at night, I guess.