Cheering The Descent to Poverty -- Greece

These 7 Yanis Varoufakis Quotes Show Why We’ll Miss Him | TIME:

The quotes are kind of enjoyable -- as is the whole spectacle of Greece and the rest of the Western World slowly discovering the truths in simple nursery rhymes like "The Ant and the Grasshopper" and "The Emperor's New Clothes" or aphorisms like "Sooner or later you run out of other people's money" is at least comforting in that the world still works as we know it does.

Naturally, those on the left do not believe in the surly bonds of reality -- here is a link to the debt crisis explained in less than 100 words... but it really takes less than that.

1. Greece has a nice socialist economy -- lots of aid to poor-middle class, lots of cushy high paid government jobs, tough on business and wealth. 
2. Business and wealth flee the country -- and what doesn't hunkers down. 
3. Financial crises comes (2008) ... income dries up even more, more people in trouble -- need loans and "bailouts". 
4. Creditors demand change -- less government spending, higher broader based taxes. 
5. Anger, denial, the vote this past weekend. 
6. Poverty 

It's a very old story in many forms from individuals, businesses and governments. Living high on the hog on credit is good until the bills come due.

They always come due.

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Will Israel Save America? A Worthy Read

Will Israel Save America? – Tablet Magazine:

This is worth taking the time to read -- real thought, real history, real unavoidable truth for consideration by mortal people to humble themselves enough to at least recognize their mortality and their limits both individually and collectively. History is full of examples of the pain caused by humans failing to do this -- to choose "men as Gods" (kings -- dictators, 5 people in robes).

A little teaser -- but the essence can't really be shortened very much.

One does not have to view Israel’s accomplishments through a theological mirror to understand what the Jewish State tells us about statecraft. Freedom does not arise from the mere presence of democratic institutions, as we learned in Iraq, or from bursts of popular enthusiasm, as we learned in the Arab Spring, or from participation in elections, as we learned when Hamas swept the 2006 West Bank elections. It depends on the radical commitment to the premise that a higher power than human caprice is the ultimate arbiter in civic life. It requires willingness to take existential risk. That is the Jewish principle in politics, the civil content of the Sinai covenant, and the basis for the American Founding. To the extent we have forgotten this, the people who stood at Mount Sinai still are there to remind us. If we reject this reminder, we will un-choose ourselves as Americans.

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Mindless SCOTUS / Religion Meme

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207283969040245&set=a.1082209898215.2014464.1315355655&type=1&fref=nf&pnref=story

This has popped up on a few lefties FB feeds. It is inane, pedantic and false -- so appealing to leftists, but it may confuse some, So a few words.

First the really easy standard lies:

In fact, one religious party believing they know the truth for all humans is how terrible oppression starts - that is how Naziism started, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the Klu Klux Klan, Al-Qaeda and now ISIS - the most destructive, hateful, murderous periods of human history have arisen directly out of one religious group (ironically, most of these examples were lead by Christians) believing their religion and religious beliefs were THE truth, and therefore they had the right to take away the rights (and lives) of those who lived or believed differently than them.

Naziism had nothing to do with religion other than Hitler hated Jews -- but as a "race", not particularly a religion. The Crusades were a DEFENSIVE action -- Islam was the aggressor party, once they were in France, Christendom finally woke up. The other items listed are pretty much "noise" -- humans like to do stupid and often violent things independent of creed (read the column), we could point out equal and longer lists on the left -- without even counting abortion.

The bottom line is this paragraph shows the author as a hater of Christians so her comments directed at such ought be taken in that context. The LEFT (meaning centralized state control) is the champion killer by FAR after the 20th century with over 100 million dead -- Communist, National and other Socialists. They KNOW they have "the truth" -- just like the column author, and their "truth" quite commonly sets millions of souls free from their earthly body in a violent fashion. Why not? They have no moral foundation beyond "might is right" -- and the author wants to make sure there is no "law" save power to stand in the way of their promethean objectives.

The problem with the whole article is just that -- "truth and power". The old US was founded a set of ENUMERATED WRITTEN RIGHTS that were "endowed by our creator" -- therefore transcending human power. Without something being transcendent -- God, a document, laws, then POWER is what determines "morality" -- might **IS** right! The SCOTUS gay "marriage" ruling is pure POWER. Our "truth" once transcended "man" (as in 9 in robes) -- and the earthy power was reserved to the people (often people too "Christian" for the author's taste, thus the preference for statist power)

"Marriage" was not one of those enumerated rights in our Constitution  -- so it was therefore left to States and Localities to determine. **IF** it was determined that a Constitutional Right to marriage was desired, the procedure to attain that in what was America was a Constitutional Amendment -- 2/3 of both houses of congress (or a convention), ratification by 3/4ths of the states. That was law.

What any law abiding person -- Christian or no, should be concerned about is the SCOTUS itself being lawless as it has on this and other cases -- Roe V Wade being the prime example. Slavery was abolished by the 13th-15th Amendments -- the law of the land was followed! Women received the vote via the 19th Amendment ... legally! To compare what just happened with real rule of law is dangerous ignorance -- or possibly blatant lies to mislead the less intelligent.

The gay "marriage" ruling was NOTHING to do with "church and state" nor the establishment clause -- and the SCOTUS never claimed that it did. Purely a fantasy of the author of the piece. Lots of wasted text.

The combination of lack of knowledge and basic reason on the part of the author of the piece is breathtaking -- although, I strongly suspect that a thinly veiled rage against Christians is really what is speaking here.

Rights are not and should not be up for a popular vote or up to the states to determine. Rights are absolute and cannot be dependent upon anything other than the fact that the person is a human being and is a citizen of the US. If those two conditions are met, YOUR belief system about what is MORALLY or spiritually right or wrong does not matter and should not. You should be glad that is the case, because it would be just as easy for another religion to take over and curtail your rights as a Christian (something that has happened throughout history).

If the author has a belief system, it must be that "government is great, government is good -- and we trust that it and it's practitioners are omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent".  We DID have a written Constitution based on "self evident truths" and "being endowed by our creator". We HAD a rule of law, not of men -- complete with a known procedure to amend the sacred document if such was needed over time -- and we DID it for things like slavery and women's suffrage!

To equate 5 people in robes conjuring a new "right" out of thin air with the actual amendments that abolished slavery and women's suffrage is to show a level of willful ignorance that proves us to no longer be worthy of the freedom to govern ourselves. "Religion" is not what the winsome lass ought be concerned about -- what 5 people in robes giveth, 5 people in robes can take away! Without respect to anything save raw power, and THAT is the power that definitely corrupts!

When we had a country called America, the authors concerns about "somebody's morals mattering" were pretty much correct -- it was LAW that mattered, and if you wanted a RIGHT, there was a LEGAL PROCEDURE to achieve that called a Constitutional Amendment.

What the author of the piece exhibits is a bigoted and poorly informed outlook with little ability to reason. It is no wonder -- our schooling has for the last 50-100 years been turning out robotic crowd following mental serfs with no concept of critical thought -- and often even no thought of doing even a Google on a fact or two rather than just making it up. Memes like this are driven by nothing deeper than knee jerk adherence to the mass "word of the day" in true Orwellian fashion.

"It made me feel good when I read it, so it MUST be true!".

So, if you see this noxious meme -- now you know a bit more of the truth. That such things can be taken seriously in this now lawless area of North America, formerly the USA, is yet another reason to wax nostalgic for the wisdom of our founders and the country we once had.

Pope Slips Surly Bonds of Sanity?

Unabomber or Unapapa? | Power Line:

I commented last week that the pope excommunicated Christ -- which seems like a bad idea to me.

Now he seems to have crossed that odd boundary where his writings are indistinguishable from the Unabomber -- a bit like Al Gore, not a good sign!

The fact that what you are saying sounds exactly like someone who is certifiably nuts isn't certain proof you are in a bad mental state -- but it is enough to give sane people pause and good reason to check with the nearest planet for confirmation one is still at least within radio range of sanity!

No word if there has been a radio check from the pope -- or perhaps we just don't have any antennas pointed his way and set to deep space!

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Gay Pride, A Pagan Two-for

Love Among the Ruins - WSJ:

The linked article shows that I'm not the only one that sees the world we are living in at this moment as completely surreal.

The rainbows flowered all over FB and even at the WH -- what was the official position of BO on gay "marriage" in 2008 BTW? Oh, never mind, the idea that there should be any remote semblance of consistency in any form from ANYONE on the left is completely absurd -- being left means never having any consistency beyond "leftward ho"!

As the article points out, people were being beheaded and blown up, and gays were being thrown to their deaths elsewhere, but all that counts here in lala-land is that a few hold out states in the already leftist gay riddled and dying US were now forced by 5 people in robes to create a new right to something with no definition (follow the link -- or just just try to define bi-sexual "marriage", no definition beyond "it's legal!")

The core human failing always has been and always will be PRIDE! The Bible makes it clear that "the BEGINNING of wisdom is the fear of God" and the core of Christianity is the acknowledgement that we are sinners in need of a Saviour to pull us up from our broken condition. To be human is to know pride, to be a Christian is to know that pride is a deadly sin.

"Gay Pride" VERY proudly trumpets two mortal sins -- equal sins. The pride is just as much and no more sin than the gay. No Christian would hold pride up as a virtue -- "Gay Pride" is pagan two-fer. It really ought to be PRIDE!! -- Gay Edition.

But watching social and public media erupt with cheap and exuberant pride of those feeling superior because they have followed the winds of the crowd. "If all your friends jumped over a cliff would you follow them?" used to be a parental admonition to stand on your own feet and think independently. That used to be an American value -- independent thought, independence, being willing to stand on your own two feet!  It is one of the many things that died as America died.

Now the masses chests swell cheaply with pagan pride, totally unaware of what they are even uttering beyond it being popular. When the gates are opened and vice becomes virtue, there is no moderating force beyond raw dictatorial power and violence. This is completely known and old as man -- see Pandora and Prometheus.

For thousands of years civilization tamed the chaos of the human soul, with great cost and effort -- most effectively with Judaism and Christianity. Even up to the middle of the 20th century many at least recognized what we had and why we had it ("God and Man at Yale" is a very worthy read on that topic).

It is obvious to those few of us that still have a very tenuous connection with the wisdom of the ages that the Furies have been released -- and the masses cheer to "Give us Barabbas"!!, because as always, they know not what they do.

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Gay Victory, The Next Frontier

It Begins: Pedophiles Call for Same Rights as Homosexuals « Pat Dollard:

"Progress" can never stop for "progressives". If the perfect world that they promise ever became a reality, then they would become "conservatives" -- and we know THAT isn't going to happen!

"Conservatism" is "sustainable" -- because it does not rule out "change" or ACTUAL "progress", it is a BIAS toward the tried and true over the latest and greatest. It prefers the devil we know to the one we don't on the assumption that all things human are flawed, and the "latest and greatest" will prove to have a whole bunch of negatives than what currently have and know to be working at some level. Conservatism is a slow selection between imperfect alternatives.

My summary is that conservatism has enough wisdom to prefer 20 year old Scotch to the most recent hootch to drip out of the still. Only the very young or the very stupid REALLY believe that the latest is the greatest -- no matter what they might say to attempt to impress those around them.

So now that being "gay" is completely as normal as being heterosexual, there MUST be a new frontier! The linked article asserts that one of the pushes will be pedophilia -- which it may well be, but is is certainly not a "new" idea. Very old ... like homosexuality itself in fact. Many primitive tribes, the Greeks, the Romans -- this is both very old and VERY "natural".

The idea of normalizing it here is also not new -- this article from 1993 was one of the reasons I cancelled my over a decade old subscription to "Time" back then. The article pointed out how "small minded" one would have to be to think that a gay teacher that was an active member of "NAMBLA" (North American Man-Boy Love Association) might be a threat to young boys he was teaching. From the article even then it was clear that only some sort of backward prude would question the advantages of gay men having sexual relationships with young boys.

As they say in the linked article:

B4U-Act calls pedophiles “minor-attracted people.” The organization’s website states its purpose is to, “help mental health professionals learn more about attraction to minors and to consider the effects of stereotyping, stigma and fear.” 

In 1998 The APA issued a report claiming “that the ‘negative potential’ of adult sex with children was ‘overstated’ and that ‘the vast majority of both men and women reported no negative sexual effects from childhood sexual abuse experiences.”

You may think to yourself "that is unthinkable, crazy, can't happen!" -- but then try to think back to 2000 -- or even 2008 when BO stated that he was not in favor of gay "marriage"! The idea that gay "marriage" would be legal ANYWHERE in the US in 2000 was no more "thinkable or sane" than the idea that pedophilia could be legal today.

What "progressives" call the process by which they make that happen is "progress".

What it is in reality though is regression to primitive chaos and depravity.


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The US Is Not Norway

Why Norwegian-Style Socialism Will Never Work in the US - The Last Resistance:

Reasonable people might ask why the hell I think posting this is remotely needed. If you think that, you have not been paying attention for a LONG time -- and certainly not in the last couple of weeks. This country is NOT being run by "reasonable people", and judging from a lot of what I see and hear, "reasonable people" are an endangered species in the US!

The whole article is worth reading, but the bottom line is that Norway is a tiny country with a VERY homogenous population and a HUGE amount of yearly oil revenues -- in fact, everyone that lives there is a millionaire in shared oil wealth! This can be contrasted to the US where each man woman and child is $56K in shared debt, growing every day.

The article is worth a read if your reason is failing these days -- and whose isn't? These are NOT "reasonable times"! The bottom line is that in Norway, almost any "system" would work, even socialism!

If you are a tiny country with 3.5% unemployment, almost no immigration, an extremely tiny population of people under the poverty line, little to no diversity of opinion and lifestyle, and a publicly-held oil trust that makes each of your citizens millionaires… Well, I think socialism might just be able to work for you. The system itself is not really working. Because systems are measured by the problems they can overcome, not by the favorable conditions over which they are able to preside. In Norway, there is almost no system that wouldn’t work.

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Age and Sentiment, Kipling

Aging and sentimentality in judges | Power Line:



As we age our energy level drops, we are less combative and more willing to avoid a fight -- the urge to "go along to get along" rises.



William F. Buckley once said that his magazine, National Review, "Stood athwart history yelling STOP!". People of a certain age tend not to stand at all, never to stand over much of anything, and they generally don't shout.



As the country slides deeper and deeper in the leftward ditch, add simple age to the forces pulling down the nation more and more rapidly.



The country was founded as a center-right nation -- and since it came complete with a written constitution, three branches of government purposely set at odds with each other, and the vast bulk of rights reserved to the individuals and STATES before the feds even had jurisdiction, it was wired to be conservative. As people got older, almost all of them became more conservative -- conservatism was the "default choice" ... it was learning to swim WITH the tide!



But now the default choice is very left wing state-ism, bent on destruction of any value that is remotely conservative. So being conservative involves constantly swimming against the cultural current -- making waves, standing out. Increasingly, with more and more bribery of the old -- FICA, Medicare, housing, etc, where once elderly depended on some combination of lifetime thrift and the success / good graces of their children, now Uncle Sam is the all-purpose caregiver. To still stand for God, Freedom and some shred of moral propriety is to bite the hand that feeds not only you, but all the people around you in your age cohort.



The article talks of the specific case of SCOTUS justices -- but anyone over 50 feels some level of the beginning fatigue of standing increasingly alone as the leftward slide gathers pace. Why bother? Just shut up, give up, and let it all careen into oblivion -- it is essentially there already anyway and it becomes more and more obvious that not only is any sort of individual resolve to hang onto some minor semblance of anything righteous and decent increasingly futile, it's a damned lonely and energy draining activity to boot!



So we should not be surprised when voices like Kennedy give up the fight and slide softly into the waiting arms of the tyrants of the left. The darkness is oppressive and powerful -- it takes the utmost in courage, resolve and most of all God's Grace to keep faith when all around are losing theirs.



The words of Kipling are very appropriate to aging conservative Christians today:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

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The Rule of Five, Dropping The Torch

A Question For Those Who Celebrate the Gay Marriage Decision | Power Line:

When there is no remaining Constitution, there can no longer be any surprise at any usurpation of power by any branch of government. The SCOTUS has long ago given up it's standing as the interpreter of the written rule of law. Their legitimate power flowed from the Constitution -- now they have destroyed that document -- the total conjuring of a "right" to any form of marriage being just the latest example.

We have no Constitution, so there is very little reason to have a SCOTUS at all -- and as the leftward slide continues at greater and greater speed, we are nearly certain to see them totally ignored by a "progressive" president, rather than just attacked during a SOTU address as they were in 2010.

The linked article asks the simple question: "If you like the current ruling on gay "marriage", what if they had decided the opposite 5-4? (that gay "marriage" was UNconstitutional)?

Since there is no "right", nor prohibition to any kind of marriage in the Constitution, the country that used to be America would have worked it out on a state by state basis democratically -- as it was doing. The court could have just as easily ruled that gay "marriage" was not Constitutional and stopped it everywhere. Would these people putting up rainbow colors all over be as happy then?

When you give your power away, you give it away! It is GONE -- for some reason people don't realize that when they see the sovereign acting in concert with their "happy idea of the day". They stand and cheer that the state by state democratic process has been usurped. Confident that things will always go their way as "law" becomes a distant to non-existent idea. Where there is no law, there is no predictability of life -- when I was married 30 years ago, the idea of gay "marriage" was as far off as the idea of marrying your sister, parent or dog is today. Given the absence of written law, there is no reason to expect that anything on that list, nor things not imagined today would be a "right" 30 years hence.

As an aside,  "libertarians" applauding 5 people in robes ability to shut down the democratic process in states makes one question both the sanity and basic intelligence of such people. How can any sentient person call themselves a "libertarian" and call it "liberty" when 5 people in robes take the right to democratic action away from 330 million?

Scalia said it best “Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court.”

We are no longer a "united" states -- when the rule of law is abandoned, then power is all that counts. We need a new nation -- perhaps the Red States can form such. The old nation is now something else than America -- the "Socialist States" or "Progressive States".

The torch of liberty has been dropped.

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George Will On BOcare Ruling

On Obamacare, John Roberts helps overthrow the Constitution - The Washington Post:

George Will provides a more in-depth discussion on the end of the Constitution than I touched on yesterday.  

Thursday’s decision demonstrates how easily, indeed inevitably, judicial deference becomes judicial dereliction, with anticonstitutional consequences. We are, says William R. Maurer of the Institute for Justice, becoming “a country in which all the branches of government work in tandem to achieve policy outcomes, instead of checking one another to protect individual rights. Besides violating the separation of powers, this approach raises serious issues about whether litigants before the courts are receiving the process that is due to them under the Constitution.”

As great nations decline, there are many milestones on the descent. One day the freedoms will be completely gone and some will wonder how it all happened.

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Saving Your Enemies

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/06/have-republicans-saved-the-obama-administration.php

One can look at the results of today and draw the conclusion that Republicans care more about avoiding short term pain than they do about saving the nation.

BO is happy, the MSM is happy, so we know that America just took a couple big torpedos amidships.

That BOcare survives is bad enough. What is worse is that congress can now write ANYTHING in a "law", and wait until it is passed, put in practice however the bureaucrats see fit, and there is no need to even go back and see what the law actually said. Republicans  may well pass something in the future that says "thou shalt not provide Social Security benefits to Illegals", and when the Democrat operated union bureaucracies get through with it, they do precisely what the law said NOT to do -- but given the "leeway" now provided on BOcare, the vast bureaucratic system as carte blanche to do whatever they want.

Law is dead, long live the bureaucrat!

The R's happily handed BO fast track authority -- and got NOTHING! He will treat them like the doormats he always has, and why not? If no respect is demanded, none is given by the left -- so the doormats have proven to be worthy of the name and his treatment of same.

The article is worth a read. Read it and weep.

History and Hillary, Sowell

Thomas Sowell: History and Hillary Clinton | New Hampshire:

Well written, concise, entirely factual and well reasoned -- and sad. Sowell does it again.

The saddest point he makes is at the end.

A President of the United States — any President — has the lives of more than 300 million Americans in his or her hands, and the future of Western civilization. If the debacles and disasters of the Obama administration have still not demonstrated the irresponsibility of choosing a President on the basis of demographic characteristics, it is hard to imagine what could. 

With our enemies around the world arming while we are disarming, such self-indulgent choices for President can leave our children and grandchildren a future that will be grim, if not catastrophic. 

Putting another disaster in the WH after the disaster that is BO seems unthinkable, but then BO seemed unthinkable TWICE!

Like all once great nations, the decline phase seems to become inevitable. If we hang around long enough we watch our parents, friends and even children age and die, and ourselves as well. For at least the greatness of nations, the same seems inevitable -- Greece, Rome, England and now the US in turn, rise -- then fall. Maybe the nation still exists, but it is the nation in name only.

The greatness is gone -- like BO in the wind!





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Pope Excommunicates Christ

Pope Francis Says Arms Manufacturers Can’t Call Themselves Christian | TIME:

I grew up in a very fundamentalist church and have been exposed to others in my life. I decided somewhere along the line that I would never be a member of a church that was too restrictive to allow Christ on the pulpit -- like you must not have a beard or long hair to take the pulpit, you must be married, you must wear a suit and tie, etc. It seems like a very good simple rule -- if your church has somehow gotten too high and mighty for the Lord of all, it seems me a given that you have taken a wrong turn.

So the pope has declared that a person that makes weapons can't be whatever he thinks "Christian" is. Let's quote a few words of Christ.

Luke 22:36 He said to them, But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.

Christ also used a whip to drive money lenders out of the temple as well (a weapon), and when John the Baptist was asked by a soldier how to reach heaven.

Luke 3:14 "What should we do?" asked some soldiers. John replied, "Don't extort money or make false accusations. And be content with your pay."

So one can be a soldier and still be a Christian according to the Bible -- Apparently the pope has not decided to excommunicate soldiers yet, but a weaponless soldier is a dead soldier, so maybe the same thing. It seems we have a clear case of the "Vicar of Christ" being nuts -- The pope is guarded by a lot of armed guards -- whose existence for the benefit of his own person would not be possible except through the efforts of a vocation he now calls non-Christian.

I won't be joining the Catholic church under the pontificate of this pope! I'm actually shocked -- I really didn't think such idiocy would ever come from the mouth of a pontiff. I thought they had controls to shut a pope that had lost it away quietly these days -- but apparently not. Sad thing to see.

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Voltaire Burning The Confederate Flag

Senate Rejects Flag Desecration Amendment:

I'm fine with SC putting the confederate flag in a museum -- Jeb Bush did that in FL, not that the media gives him any credit for it. It is a state issue, let them take care of it.

There was once an American principle called "Freedom of Speech". The ACLU defended the right of Nazis to march in Skokie. Caustic comics like Lenny Bruce and others were staunchly defended from especially the left, but in general, "free speech" -- definitely including very derogatory, racist, obscene, incendiary, etc speech was considered a cornerstone of America. In general, we agreed with Voltaire : "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

Liberty was a big thing in that country -- we even had a statue to celebrate it. "Give me liberty or give me death" was a famous quote of that nation.

As you can see from the linked article, as recently as 2006 you could not get an amendment to prevent burning the US Flag through the US Senate. Burning the US Flag was deemed important enough speech that even though clearly incendiary "speech" in more ways than one, it was important that you be allowed to burn the symbol that over a million soldiers have died to preserve over the course of our history.

Then came "hate speech". It can't be defined in advance -- for example just this past weekend, BO said "the N-word", but in his case it isn't defined as "hate speech", so it is OK. He also read from his own book "Dreams From My Father", where his use of the word is much less "presidential".

"Hate Speech" is like "taxes", "sexual harassment", "racism", or a whole host of other concepts now that are weapons used by the dominant party (Democrat) to destroy the opposition when and as desired. It is about POWER, not law.

Since the nation no longer has shared values that ALL parties observe EQUALLY, like "free speech", everything becomes a matter of pure political calculation. So if the confederate flag is considered objectionable, it is an instant wedge issue to be used for political gain with no discussion of freedom of speech.

Next week the same people could turn around an defend burning a US Flag, because the ONLY issue in a nation without rule of law is POLITICS! "Law" is whatever is the "political winner" -- and in fact becomes a malleable weapon -- today one person or politician can use the N-word and be fine, tomorrow another can say "niggardly" and be taken down as an insensitive racist.

The key to survival in a totalitarian nation is "watching the winds of power blow". While Republicans had absolutely no reason to run for cover in SC, it was obvious that the media storm was blowing their direction, so they quickly acted as scared rabbits to see how quickly they could get out of the way to try to minimize their damage.

BO however has catbird power -- he can say the N-word with impunity. No outcry, off the news as fast as it shows up, no storm -- power prerogative. The masses know power and are impressed by it -- the media and TP ability to successfully pin a flag raised by Democrats on Republicans and having the Republicans portrayed as little boys caught with their pants down as they try to deal with the storm is an impressive show that resonates with the common man. The rank and file sheeple don't really know how they are being manipulated, and it is sad to see what BO refers to as the "bitter clingers" jerking about as marionettes in the hands of spastic masters.

Voltaire and the French put too much faith in the common man. Our founders understood that and gave us a written Constitution, rule of law, and made us a Republic, not a "democracy" (mobocracy). Watching the machinations of TP this week shows how easily the vast vast majority of this nation can now be manipulated in our state of totalitarian political power.

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Democrats Don't Trust BO -- Why Do Republicans?

Senate Hands a Victory to Obama on Trade Pact - The New York Times:



Republicans have a VERY nasty habit of caring more about the actual country than they do politics! They have this weird thought that "right is right" no matter who is in power, and that "doing the right thing", even if it gives power to a president that REGULARLY calls you all manner of names including "racists", because it is "good for the country".



In the past -- when government was limited and we had a Constitution that both sides believes in, one could hold up such ideals as reasonable. Right now though, this is like negotiating with terrorists. Even if you DON'T give BO this authority he is likely to act as if he has it anyway!



BO sees this as personal POWER -- I believe the Republican faith in his goodwill and assurances he will use this for what the Republicans expect is extremely likely to come back to haunt them.



I fail to understand why Boehner and McConnell can't simply say "We are in complete agreement with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who don't trust this president with trade authority. We don't trust him either, bipartisanship has been reached!"



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