Barack Hussein Obama or Mr. Strawman Wizard, the shaman of progressive bushwa, wants tax increases to fight the deficit. He says he wants to sacrifice sacred cows.
In fact, Mr. Strawman Wizard says that he doesn’t want our kids to be sacrificed. He wants the owners of corporate jets to be sacrificed. He wants to do this for the gods of social justice – the class warfare gods. They are not happy campers on Mount Olympus (see the riots in Greece for more information).
Wow! I wonder if Michele will have to cancel her next trip out of the country? (What’s that? A four on the hole, Mr. Obama?)
(“Gee, Mr Wizard, you could use your one billion dollar campaign fund to help pay off the deficit.” “Peabody, we have millionaires for that.”)
If you don’t know by now, Obama’s demand of the Republicans is the standard, out of the box solution for a Democrat: Raise Taxes (and building casinos). But can you believe it? This is what this most intelligent (we are told) man wants to do: Raise taxes. This Chicago Whiz Kid Pol has no other plan!
Once again we see the continued attempt to shakedown (called redistribution of wealth by progressives & socialists) the American People through the tax system.
You undoubtedly know that we are in a recession and we have inflation: gas prices are up, food prices are up and the housing market is in the dumpster. When was the last time you had a decent pay increase?
Moronic squeeze: inflation and a tax increase w/malaise to go before I sleep.
It is way past time to tar, feather and run this witch doctor out on a rail (or, at least put him in the Way Back machine where he can’t sacrifice anybody.)
***********
Milton Friedman:
“I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible. “
“Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation. “
“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem. “
Imagine a popular American history book that never mentions Christianity or conservatism. Pull the lever and out comes the pellet – Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present.
“(Howard Zinn’s) failure is grounded in a premise better suited to a conspiracy-monger’s Web site than to a work of scholarship. According to Zinn, “99 percent” of Americans share a “commonality” that is profoundly at odds with the interests of their rulers. And knowledge of that awesome fact is “exactly what the governments of the United States, and the wealthy elite allied to them-from the Founding Fathers to now-have tried their best to prevent.”
History for Zinn is thus a painful narrative about ordinary folks who keep struggling to achieve equality, democracy, and a tolerant society, yet somehow are always defeated by a tiny band of rulers whose wiles match their greed. He describes the American Revolution as a clever device to defeat “potential rebellions and create a consensus of popular support for the rule of a new, privileged leadership.” His Civil War was another elaborate confidence game. Soldiers who fought to preserve the Union got duped by “an aura of moral crusade” against slavery that “worked effectively to dim class resentments against the rich and powerful, and turn much of the anger against ‘the enemy.'”
Nothing of consequence, in his view, changed during the industrial era, notwithstanding the growth of cities, railroads, and mass communications. Zinn views the tens of millions of Europeans and Asians who crossed oceans at the turn of the past century as little more than a mass of surplus labor. He details their miserable jobs in factories and mines and their desperate, often violent strikes at the end of the nineteenth century-most of which failed. The doleful narrative makes one wonder why anyone but the wealthy came to the United States at all and, after working for a spell, why anyone wished to stay.”
Our country is rapidly becoming a place where each person’s life will be dictated by “Democracy” and not by moral objective Truth and righteousness. A majority of voters (many informed only by a salacious media and junk journalism) will tell you how to live, what’s right and wrong and what’s politically correct. In other words, a democracy built on sand.
On any given day we are quickly told that fairness should rule the day and that fairness trumps everything. Fairness is the anointing oil used by the social justice market-eers. Yet, fairness is not justice and a majority vote is not fairness. And most important of all, fairness is often a compromise of the Truth. You should know that Jesus, Truth Incarnate, never talked about fairness or wealth redistribution. But, his disciple Judas did while pocketing some of the donated money for himself. For Judas, it was only fair. Right?
Fairness as a determiner for social justice quickly leads to a demand for equal outcomes. Who decides what is fair? Who pays for equal outcomes? Remember the wise King Solomon ready to slice a baby in two so that each claimant would receive equal outcomes? A fair decision? Yes. A wise decision? No.
As I see it, the more our “Democratic” system of government supplants individual liberties and moral convictions with fairness forcing its will upon us, the more we stand to lose as individuals. Take a hard look at the seemingly benign entitlement like Obamacare. Soon, we will all become a DMV number on a waiting list waiting for the health care that is prescribed (and voted on) by a majority of amoral people. Having a health insurance card and having access to health care are two very different things. Wait and see. Obamacare is a hospital of cards.
Or, see how our government is redefining life as we know it. The sanctity of a man-woman marriage is being mocked by the State’s allowance for gay marriage. We are being told that this is only fair. Is it fair to those in a natural marriage ? I refer you to the second paragraph.
And, the State is the using (and defining) ‘quality of a life’ criteria so that abortions can take place. Is abortion fair to the aborted child? We are lost and we’ve lost a sense of right and wrong, a sense of our true selves. A sense of entitlement (our rights) blurs our vision. We seek to create a sense of self based on what is deemed fair and expedient at the moment and not on Rock solid principles of Truth.
As an outcome, in order to survive our character and our moral foundations will be exchanged for a black market ethos. We will sell, buy and trade ourselves to maintain our selves. We are becoming the animals/machines (the Eloi and Morlocks of H. G. Well’s Time Machine) that proponents of naturalism want us to believe that we are. And, if you are a Naturalist and believe that unabated atheism makes you intellectually fulfilled, then take a look at where you are heading. It’s not up the ladder.
If the whims of fairness are the only deciding principles in any situation, what choices do you really have? Only those who are in power will decide what is fair. Soon, you won’t have the liberty to decide. You will have traded it for a bucket of sand labeled fairness.
You will then have to abdicate your beliefs and convictions to be accepted in the ‘fair’ society as politically correct. Truth, no longer objective, will become what our ‘friends’ let us get away with saying (the philosophy of Richard Rorty).
Finally, a Democracy with moral turpitude won’t get my vote. There’s already a drainage sewer called Europe.
There can be no true enduring Democracy in our land without Objective Truth as the Head Cornerstone and a foundation which is built on the Solid Rock.
******
On another but similar note:
The courageous “Don’t Tread On Me” is becoming the whiny “It’s Not Fair”; Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, is quickly becoming the Land of Lottery.
It’s early Friday morning and my two feet are now shuffling along on the circumference of the earth moving at a tortoise’s pace even though I am told that my land speed is actually the product of the cosine of my latitude times the earth’s equator’s circumference speed of just over 1000 MPH – not as fast as High Speed Internet but faster than the speed of sound. And speaking of sound, I woke up early and shut off the alarm clock before its due diligence was required. Hiding under the covers I was moving less than a centimeter an hour but thinking about work. OK, I had to get up.
After the morning ritual of making coffee, feeding Henry my Parrolet, feeding myself, showering and listening to the weather lottery numbers I head to the train. (If the train heads east at 40 MPH and the earth is rotating east at 1000 MPH will my accumulated speed be 1040 MPH and why are the trains always late?)
I stand behind the yellow line waiting for the train. Today the commuters are standing waiting at the south side track. The train traffic lights indicate this but there has been no announcement. Headlights appear around the bend. Everyone around me starts running around the gate to the north track. I stay put with this super good looking guy who is not married and standing right next to me.
I tell him that it looks like the train is on the south tracks. He says, “Yeah it is.” Then someone yells “There’s a freight coming”. We run and catch up with the others and we meet up on the other side. The freight finally passes and the guy says, “Watch, the train will probably come on the south track.” I say, “Yeah, right”, wanting to agree with anything he said. At this point I didn’t care which track the train came on. I just wanted to stand waiting with him thinking that if he and I were polar opposites we would be virtually standing still, moving only centimeters an hour, very slowly, taking our time…
I had this all the physics worked out but then the train arrived. We boarded the train and I walk to my seat in the front car and mystery man heads off to his usual seat in the next car. (Love and Schrödinger’s cat: dead or alive?). We reach the train station and I start walking the six blocks to my office.
It’s chilly this morning. I’m glad I wore a jacket. This summer’s been in the cooler but at least today the wind off the lake is giving me a break. Good. I won’t have a ratted hair style by the time I get to work.
Then I see them – red and tan men in white tee shirts and blue jeans walking with red and white lunch buckets, pulling red hand-trucks loaded with tool boxes. We pass each other on the sidewalk with knowing glances: me – the good ones aren’t gay; them – she’s no teenage dream.
I walk past Polish cleaning women holding cigarettes at clichéd angles and large peg-legged women getting out of taxis. Homeless men say ‘Good morning.” They offer me StreetWise and the SunTimes. I say, “Good morning” and smile. I always buy the SunTimes from the guy outside the Corner Bakery who says “Good Morning, Lovely” every time when I walk up.
Along the way there are whiffs of sewer gas mixed with the aroma of fresh baked bread and the homey smell of the daily brew. I see young girls behind counters busy filling cupcake display cases. I see lettuce being chopped, bacon being crisped, deliveries being made and bums waking up. I finally get to work.
At noon I will go to the Taste of Chicago with my friend Deon. I’ll find the Billy Goat’s Tavern booth and order my usual: “Cheezborger with no fries, cheeps! No Pepsi, Coke!” She’ll order her usual: cheesecake with Caramel Pecan sauce. We’ll come back to work smoky, smelling like Robinson’s No. 1 barbeque rib pit. I’ll be sleepy, too.
But tonight is Friday Night and in my head the dance mix is just revving up. Later, its rhythm will move to my feet and I’ll be moving and dancing with a speed that is the product of the cosine of my latitude times the earth’s equator’s circumference speed of just over 1000 MPH. Rocket girl.
Sunday morning: My lunch plans with my two youngest, R18 and R14, changed to breakfast plans. My daughter’s new place of employment asked her to work from noon to five.
I am happy for my daughter. She has just graduated from high school and has now landed a job in a matter of days – a job which pays $10.00 an hour in a workplace surrounded by cool knickknacks and fun art objects. It is one of her favorite stores. R18 is a graphic artist (designed her senior year high school yearbook cover) and she may soon get an internship with a local graphics arts company. She wants to learn the business side of things, she told me. She’s just like her dad.
I made breakfast for my two youngest: pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon. R14, my youngest son, doesn’t do well in the morning. He’s slow to come around but he did find the orange pop hiding in the fridge. I wanted him to drink the orange juice that I bought for our breakfast but then I conceded, as fathers do when confronted by the magnanimity of Father’s day.
At breakfast, R18 & R14 gave me a $50.00 gift card to Barnes & Noble. This was totally unexpected: my kids get money from me. R18‘s first paycheck must have covered the cost. I was completely wowed by such generosity. I didn’t cry till later, another father’s day concession.
I told my kids that I had been coveting a book at B & N: David McCullough’s The Greater Journey, Americans in Paris. The book was priced at $37.98 less 30%. The reduced price was still too much for me to pay during this Obamic depression so I kept saying No, hoping the price would descend to a pauper’s price. The gift card covered the reduced cost of McCullough’s book plus Mario Livio’s The Golden Ratio and Mario Vargas Llosa’s Death in the Andes. The unexpected gift told me that I was loved.
On Sunday afternoon I purchased these books. The day before, Saturday, I had been at B & N browsing as I always do after a weekend breakfast. I ended up purchasing an inexpensive CD: Joe Cocker: Icon. I brought the CD to the counter to pay for it and the short grey-haired woman behind the counter said that she had just purchased Mad Dogs and Englishmen. I said, Lot of memories there. She said, Yeah that’s why I bought it. Our smiles said the rest.
After B & N I went to a local Mexican restaurant, a new place founded by a chef who had worked with Rick Bayless. The restaurant is only three blocks from my place so I figured margaritas could have their way with me (while I stimulated the economy). I ordered a Mora-rita and Blue Marlin Ceviche. Authentic Mexican food is great. I am not crazy about Tex-Mex.
After finishing another Mora-rita I felt pleasantly pacified so I took my order of De Panza tacos home and situated myself in front of the TV. I had hoped there would be something of value on the tube. As it turned out Life With Father was on TCM and Steven King’s (Rita Hayworth and the) Shawshank Redemption was on another channel.
Feet went up, food went down. I settled into the end of Father’s Day 2011 believing that love and redemption go a long way, from one year to the next.
Dad,
Masquerading man –
Provider, Decider, Chronicler,
Motivator and Love’s unlikely dance Partner,
A mischievous Mirth-er who’s my mother’s lover
(Confused by Eve but not alone),
A baseball phenom:
Always at bat for me;
Always fielding my bloopers;
Always never keeping score,
A figurine in flannel wearing
Camouflaged feelings in the blind
Savior of children’s happiness with
Strength born of recycled weakness –
Dad,
A Giver given.
BTW: The separation of church and state effectively means that the state cannot control the church. Separation of church and state does not mean that we the people cannot voice our faith in Almighty God while serving our government. The wrong definition came directly from Bill Ayers, a known radical terrorist.
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
*****
“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
*****
“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
*****
“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
*****
Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
*****
If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
*****
“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
*****
“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
*****
Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
*****
“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
*****
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
*****
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
*****
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
*****
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
*****
God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
*****
From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
*****
“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
*****
One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
*****
“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
*****
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
*****
“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
**
“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
*****
“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
*****
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
*****
“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
*****
This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
*****
“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
*****
Cindy Wity 