European Vacation Part III
January 7, 2012 Leave a comment
I have an answer for those who would like to see America become like Europe: take a slow boat to Europe.
If you are young and hold a useless degree (liberal arts, gender studies, “identity” studies, African-American studies, etc) and are jobless in spite of Obama’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 than take your worthless piece of paper and flee to the cafes of Paris or Rome. Spend your Recovery summers and winters, springs and autumns in Europe. Become one of Europe’s intellectual elites. Better yet, become the vagabond that you have always dreamed of becoming– just you, nature and Kumbaya. Become the insipid whiner who decries American liberty for having too much opportunity and too much choice and not enough government programs making choices for you.
If you are seeking European style health care then the perfect answer for you would be to relocate yourself and your citizenship to a European country. After all, America, having paid for the defense of Europe during WWII to the tune of 80 plus billion dollars and with thousands of American lives, allowed European nations to turn their swords into plowshares, their guns into socialized medicine. America effectively paid for the implementation of Germany’s health care system. And, doesn’t America still have a military base in Germany protecting German interests as well as American interests, freeing up German defense dollars for healthcare?
Socialist Europe is held up as a model of “just behavior”; but the Left forgets that for seventy-five years America defended Europe from the Communist threat, and bore the cost, which would have bankrupted Europe, and which, in the event, bankrupted Communism. The Left looks at the peace of Europe since World War II and forgets that it was not only ensured, but created by American military strength and determination (and funded by the Marshall plan, which is to say, by a surplus of American industrial wealth.) And now the Left has elected a President who thinks it good to go to Europe and apologize for our “arrogance”, who proclaims the benefits of appeasement both at home and around the world.[1]
Coming out of a decisive victory made possible by America, the Marshall plan funneled huge amounts of money into the rebuilding of European nations devastated by the Third Reich. America paid a steep price to free Europe from her enemies. Europe responded by turning inward and to pampering herself with socialized health care. The facts now reveal, though, that under European style socialized health care you will get a small bang for your Euro in Europe, unless of course you are really looking for legalized drugs.
And, if you are looking for top-down centralized government and the chance to really all-out criticize and complain about America then Europe is the place for you. Over there, in the Elysian Fields where there is “blessed” life after life in your despised America, you can rail against the Yanks for being so greedy, so selfish, so uncaring, so hard-working and so American. Forget about WWII. Forget about the fact that America is the most charitable nation on earth (a common good interventionism) and a strong defender of liberty against totalitarianism. And forget, too, that millions of people left their homelands for the chance at American prosperity and for the freedoms of speech, religion and choice.
I believe the incredible wealth of this country will allow it to survive quite awhile on its hundred years of production and upon its natural resources and historic culture of productivity.
But the Change which Obama’s rhetoric referred to preceded and will follow him, accelerated by him and his policies, accepted by a drugged populace and supine press. It is the unfortunate descent of a productive nation into socialism, which, as I understand it, is robbing Peter to pay Paul. I don’t think it’s any more complex than that.[2]
In Europe, give in to your to your passions and to your righteous anger. Go riot in the French streets about banal differences in French cinema. Find your mojo among the militant Left Euro-Sophists. Stir your Café Americano pensively, smoke your Marlboros and sit around in distressed blue jeans chatting smugly with others of your herd about your almost extinct planet and the need to create a global warming franchise like Al Gore has done. You have earned it.
A vagabond status of passive living is so incredibly ‘60s. Peace and love baby. Go for it. Experience the experience. Become one with the world. Find yourself. COEXIST with yourself in Europe and please leave America to the Americans.
If you are looking for “Hope” and “Change” look no farther: America’s promise of liberty, opportunity and choice is filled with “Hope”. To be sure, American hope is born out of character which is born out of perseverance through trial, through hard work and yes, through suffering and not out of European-like nanny state programs which enable sloth, intemperance, envy and even despair.
“Change” comes when you begin to fully appropriate America’s “Hope.” “Change,” thus, begins and ends with you, right here, right now. Or, board the next boat to parts unknown.
[1] David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On Dismantling of American Culture (New York: Penguin Books: Sentinel, 2011, http://davidmamet.com/) 44.
[2] Ibid, 64



I Support the Man of Action: Part One
January 9, 2012 Leave a comment
WLS-890 AM, Sunday afternoon: On my way to the grocery store I turned on the car radio. Phil Ponce, a Chicago television journalist for WTTW, was filling in for one of his sons, either Anthony or Dan, during their Sunday afternoon radio broadcast. I believe the Ponce Brother’s program was also substituting for Bob Brinker’s Money Talk (a favorite program of mine) that afternoon. As I tuned in Anthony or Dan was mentioning how that most of the callers were favoring Newt Gingrich as the GOP nominee.
The Ponces, father and son, then took another call, a female caller who mentioned her age of 59. She talked (I’ll paraphrase) about how the country needs to be taken back. Phil Ponce mentioned that many callers had said the same thing. He then asked her what she meant by that. In brief she said that many of the laws and the Constitution itself that we as a nation have in place are simply disregarded by the people in power, especially by President Obama and his administration.
In talking about her childhood she recalled how that we as a nation knew what the laws were and that they were not subject to arbitrary change by those in power as they are now. She said no country is perfect or has it easy but our nation was a light shining on a hill (a Reagan reference) but is now it is dimming in that capacity.
That is what I heard. Her exact words…if the show’s podcast or transcript becomes available I will post it.
Also, as I found out later, during the same broadcast and prior to my turning the radio on, Illinois Senator Mark Kirk surprised the Ponces by calling in. Phil Ponce recounted how he had jokingly suggested that the illinois Senator call in to talk about his choice for a GOP candidate. Senator Kirk did call in and said that he was backing Romney. This is too bad.
About two weeks ago I wrote an e-mail to Senator Kirk asking him to back Newt Gingrich. I did this when I heard that Kirk was coming out for Romney. Romney, I believe, will be in over his head. But if Romney becomes the GOP nominee Romney would still be a much better choice than Obama, Obama and his multiple czars who are responsible to no one but the president.
By bypassing our elected representatives in Congress and appointing these czars Obama showed flagrant disrespect for America, her Constitution and our elected representatives. Also, Obama’s appointment of Eric Holder as AG was meant as a slap in the face of the American system of justice (e.g., Holder’s ignoring the Black Panther’s intimidation of voters).
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I am backing Newt Gingrich for President.
In a recent web-column for The Detroit News economist Thomas Sowell talks about the need for a man of action to lead this country:
Illinois must vote for Newt in the Illinois primary on March 24, 2012. We need a man of action who has a sincere appreciation of American history, the Constitution, American values and actual success with the political process. I encourage you to vote for the Statesman Newt Gingrich to be the GOP nominee for president. Let’s stop the pious baloney.
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Filed under Life As I See It, Political Commentary, Politics, short piece, Writing Tagged with 2012 Presidential campaign, Illinois Primaries, Newt Gingrich, Thomas Sowell