The View From Here

There has been a lot of discussion lately re: the continued admittance of liberal posters at B4V, the cautioned albeit well intended advice to a friendship based on commonalities other than politics, but those thoughts and discussions are also combined with an increasing obsession to personally belittle others from both sides. I must admit that early on in my B4V presence beginning in 2006, I did enjoy attacking liberals, and still do post some sarcastic remarks, but the personal attacks have certainly escalated over the last few years, and that is just not healthy for anyone, particularly the one leveling the attack. Personally, I had to reflect on that – do I really harbor such disdain in my heart for someone I don’t personally know? I will admit that when I read a post from majordomo that begins “We, Ourselves”, I still have to hold back from launching into a sarcastic tirade, but on the occasion I have, I realize that that tirade only affects me, and me alone. It tends to discombobulate my attitude and my day, and quite frankly majordomo isn’t worth it. So I decided a while back that I just wasn’t going to engage in the swamp anymore. That I would simply voice my opinion, which I enjoy doing, and would only respond in kind to those liberal posters that I deemed worthy of a response. Everything else I would just ignore, and I must say, that my blood pressure is down – LOL.

As some of you know, my daughter is a liberal and voted for Obama in the last two elections. In 2008, she and I were at odds, and the dialogue was heated on occasion, but being that she is my daughter, I made a point to converse on a range of topics outside of politics and when the conversation did circle back around to politics, I was tempered as was she. Consequently, we have had some very good conversations. A while back I sent Mitch a personal email at his request, and in the beginning we did battle each other on political issues, which of course we were at odds over, but slowly the conversation turned to other issues and common ground was struck. In my opinion, life is simply too short to personally attack each other on line. This doesn’t mean that I have stopped contributing, campaigning, writing on, and voting for the demise of liberalism, as that is a passion of mine that will not abate anytime soon, but I also realize that at my age, heated rhetoric is something I choose to largely ignore and wish everyone on this blog, conservatives and liberals, would also adhere to. Simply voice your opinion on the issue du jour, or comment on your over arching ideology, be prepared to defend it civilly, and don’t be offended by those who try to drag you down into the swamp. I also ask of Matt and Mark to delete posts that do insult and harangue, and if it doesn’t stop, to ban the commentator, and that includes me. I would like to see a new direction at B4V, one that actually provokes thought, converses on a range of topics, and one that welcomes civil and insightful input from a diverse group. What do you think the chances of that are?

In keeping with the spirit of the blog, my issue du jour is – The Fifth! Hard to believe that Lois Lerner plead the Fifth. I think it does more harm to the regime than good. It just reeks of malicious intent. Furthermore, why is Sarah Hall Ingram not testifying? And why is she being promoted to oversee the ACA enforcement? This whole IRS scandal doesn’t pass the smell test.

Ideology Open Thread

It’s been a while since we’ve had a purely ideological debate. Just for the sake of discussion, and in light of the new welcoming of progressive views here at B4V, let’s say that Conservatism as a political movement just folds up and gives Progressives free rein to do whatever they want. In one generation will America be more free or less free? Will America be more prosperous or less prosperous? Will American students graduating from high school and college be more educated or less educated? Will our air and water be cleaner or dirtier?  Will we make a seamless transition to alternate/renewable energy?  If so, will that mean abundant and economical energy or undependable and expensive energy?

I’m not looking so much for opinions on these dynamics as I am on evidence, either anecdotal or historical as well as new ideas, or, at least new approaches to old ideas that have never worked before, to support how a totally Progressive society might evolve over a generation. So have at it.  Liberals, here’s your chance to strut your stuff.  The only comments that will be deleted are those that resort to vulgar language and name calling.

Regarding DOMA And Other “Assurances.”

OK– I’ll open the floodgates–time for a ramble….

Marriage is a word used to describe a societal institution, and it means something–or at least it has, that something being a relatively permanent, committed union between a man and a woman. Yes, I know that people have historically taken their own marriages too lightly and the Hollywood left and others have treated their marriages in much the same manner as middle-school kids treat crushes; but the essential accepted definition of the term, “MARRIAGE” has nonetheless remained intact for the better part of 2000 years.

Now, however, we are being told that we, in a new ‘enlightened’ era, must arbitrarily re-define the longstanding societal institution of marriage, for better or worse, to include same sex couples, and that it should be so under the 14th Amendment, and upheld between States under the “Full Faith and Credit” clause.

Fine and dandy, I guess…BUT–

We’re also told that that’s as far as it will go– and if we (those who are against gay marriage and/or those who are on the fence) think that it is the beginning of a slippery slope ‘anything goes’ redefinition of the institution of marriage, we’re just paranoid neanderthals.. 10 or 15 years ago, we were also told that there was no need to pass a defense of marriage amendment to the Constitution, because the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) protected that traditional definition.

Fine and dandy, as well, I guess;

However, up to this point, no one has been able to adequately explain how, if the SCOTUS decision tilts the “gay marriage” way, that polygamists, incestuous couples, etc., will not also want equal protection under the 14th Amendment, and sue for the right to marry, and that the term ‘marriage’ will have so many meanings so as to render what has been a veritable societal institution meaningless.

In other words, what is to prevent the slippery slope we’re being assured will not happen?

Personally, I’m of the mind that it’s a State issue, and that ALL unions should be civil unions. But should the term “Marriage” be so malleable so as to become meaningless?

Are people really thinking things through on this issue? Or are many merely living in the zeitgiest of the moment,  inconsiderate of and/or oblivious to the ramifications?

I’ve been thinking long and hard the past few days, and I can’t see any assurances that my worst nightmare regarding the institution of marriage, that it essentially becomes meaningless, will not come to fruition.

While many marriages have failed since time imemoriam, the institution of marriage on balance has unarguably been a net-positive as a building block for literally thousands of years into our civilization.

I guess all I’m saying is that we may be taking this issue a bit too cavalierly; jumping in the clouded pool without regard as to its depth and/or its potential consequences.

I await to be educated to the contrary.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan – Mark Steyn nails it:

…It came up at dinner Down Under this time last year, and the prominent Aussie politician on my right said matter-of-factly, “It’s not about expanding marriage, it’s about destroying marriage.” That would be the most obvious explanation as to why the same societal groups who assured us in the Seventies that marriage was either (a) a “meaningless piece of paper” or (b) institutionalized rape are now insisting it’s a universal human right…

The thing about liberals is that, at bottom, they are just downright nasty – doesn’t matter what the issue is, they will always take the worst possible position and if it contradicts their previous position its no matter…as long as hatred the destruction of our civilization proceed, they’re just pleased as punch.

Revisited: The Rationing Has Already Started and obAMATEUR-CARE Is Not in Full Swing Yet….

We told you so……

It was estimated that 9-25 million people with pre-existing conditions were not insured.

The “high risk pools” set up under 2010 obAMATEUR-care law will be closed to new applicants by March 2nd (some states by Sunday) because funding is running low.

A sign of things to come…. We have seen this in Europe, especially in England, but warnings went unheeded to the pResident and Democrats hell bent on 1/7th of the nations wealth.

What will happen next?

Update: Following are the smear attacks by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman on Republicans and Sarah Palin:

• August 13, 2009 ”Right now, the charge that’s gaining the most traction is the claim that health care reform will create “death panels” (in Sarah Palin’s words) that will shuffle the elderly and others off to an early grave. It’s a complete fabrication, of course.”
• August 20, 2009 “It seems as if there is nothing Republicans can do that will draw an administration rebuke: Senator Charles E. Grassley feeds the death panel smear, warning that reform will “pull the plug on grandma,” and two days later the White House declares that it’s still committed to working with him.”
• February 25, 2010 “So what did we learn from the summit? What I took away was the arrogance that the success of things like the death-panel smear has obviously engendered in Republican politicians. At this point they obviously believe that they can blandly make utterly misleading assertions, saying things that can be easily refuted, and pay no price. And they may well be right.”
• August 30, 2009“Moderate Republicans, the sort of people with whom one might have been able to negotiate a health care deal, have either been driven out of the party or intimidated into silence. Whom are Democrats supposed to reach out to, when Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who was supposed to be the linchpin of any deal, helped feed the “death panel” lies?”
• October 4, 2009 “The Republican campaign against health care reform, by contrast, has shown no such consistency. For the main G.O.P. line of attack is the claim — based mainly on lies about death panels and so on — that reform will undermine Medicare. And this line of attack is utterly at odds both with the party’s traditions and with what conservatives claim to believe.”
• March 21, 2010: “Politicians like Sarah Palin — who was, let us remember, the G.O.P.’s vice-presidential candidate — eagerly spread the death panel lie, and supposedly reasonable, moderate politicians like Senator Chuck Grassley refused to say that it was untrue. On the eve of the big vote, Republican members of Congress warned that “freedom dies a little bit today” and accused Democrats of “totalitarian tactics,” which I believe means the process known as “voting.”

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/krugman-death-panels-palin/2010/11/14/id/377013#ixzz2MEa6Iss9

The New York Times columnist, economist and political advisor said that within less than 20 years the US will need to raise taxes and ration healthcare to deal with rising costs under Obamacare and yes, he said “death panels.”

Turns out to be true!! Krugman confirms RATIONING AND DEATH PANELS!

So, what’s next?

Oh yeah the ultimate goal:  Single payer system totally in the hands of the government – total control of 1/7th of the economy.  It works so well with Medicare and the VA!

 

Where Is Your Line In The Sand?

I suspect almost all of us have a line beyond which we don’t want to see government “progress”. Clearly we haven’t reached that line for virtually anyone except an occasional fringe kook. Otherwise we’d be in the midst of a civil war or, at the very least, see the rise of violent, radical groups like the Weather Underground or the Symbionese Liberation Army reminiscent of the 60′s and 70′s. And while the number of organized militias has increased 7-fold since Obama was first elected, only a couple have engaged in any activity that’s made the news. More mainstream groups like Oath Keepers are pretty low key, and, unless you’re a member, you’ve probably not seen them mentioned on the news.

So clearly the vast majority of people, while we may complain in letters to the editor, calls to talk radio, and comments on blogs, are apparently not really all that upset with the status quo in the country right now. And yet I believe everyone has a breaking point, a point beyond which they say “no mas” (A little Spanish lingo for those of you in Rio Linda).

So, some questions for our readers: where is your line in the sand? If you have a progression of lines, what is your response at each point? If the line is an action by your state, do you move to another state? Do you try to go “off the grid”? Do you simply move from a city to a rural area? At what point do you openly resist, either as an individual or as part of a group? Is there any principle that is so important to you that you’d risk your life to defend it?  Does anyone think it’s possible that the Progressives’ incremental and gradual approach will continue to succeed until we devolve into totalitarianism? If you’re a Progressive, what is it that you’re “progressing” toward? I’m guessing that even Progressives have a point beyond which they don’t want to see government go.  If history shows us anything, it’s that a progression of power into the hands of a central government always ends the same way.  Are you one of those “this time it will be different” people, or have you not thought that far ahead?

And finally, looking back at the last century of Progressivism, does anyone think it’s possible to reverse some of the lines we’ve already crossed, or is simply not possible to put that toothpaste back in the tube?

I’d like to see some comments from Progressives on this thread, even those who have been banned or routinely have their posts deleted.  You have my word that, as long as you stay on topic and stay civil, your posts will not be deleted.

 

George H.W. Bush in Intensive Care

From Pajamas Media:

Former President George H.W. Bush has been moved into the intensive care unit, a family spokesman said.

Bush was originally admitted to a Houston hospital on Nov. 23 for a bronchitis-like cough, which has mostly gone away. But the 88-year-old has had a fever that has not only hung on, but has been rising.

“Following a series of setbacks including a persistent fever, President Bush was admitted to the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital on Sunday where he remains in guarded condition,” family spokesman Jim McGrath said…

No worries for President Bush – at 88 he’s lived the full life; given what I know of the man, he’s certainly not at all worried for himself.  But my prayers for his family and friends during this trying time.

The Puppet Show

Well, the dutiful bubble-headed talking heads on the Alphabets, like clockwork, are busily carrying the democrat water, spouting off about how gun control is now the best thing since sliced bread; that it was the gun that killed the children at Sandy Hook Elementary, not the finger attached to the perp that pulled the trigger.

The bodies are cold enough. Let the politicization begin.

I’m really tired of having public policy dictated by the emotion du jour instead of by clear-thinking minds, just so some idiot politician can beat his or her chest, and say “Look at me!! See what I did?? I care!!” not to mention the lamebrained kneejerk reactions by some politically correct company board rooms afraid of their own shadows, putting their ears to the ground, just so they could follow the latest mindless lemming stampede.

As David Axelrod said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”

There’s nothing that the current statist government-uber-alles powers-that-be would love more than to have an unarmed populace of subjects, vs. an armed populace of citizens.Never mind that gun control in this country, no matter how strict, has NEVER worked. It has had the OPPOSITE effect.Never mind that criminals don’t give a flying copulatory act in a rolling pastry about gun laws.

Never mind that the only ones who will be disarmed are the law abiding citizens who would never otherwise visit harm upon their fellow man.

It’s all about EMOTION. Rationality, my friends, is over-rated.

What you are now witnessing is a textbook example of David Axelrod’s axiom in action; Big Government statists and willing media accomplices engaging in a coordinated “campaign of whispers” to whip the information-bereft Idiocracy into an unstoppable emotion-laden frenzy to do their bidding under the guise of “doing *something!*” little realizing (or simply not caring) that they are all too willing to give up freedom, for a false sense of security, only to be relieved of both.

The puppeteers are now licking their chops; joyously, triumphantly pulling emotion-laden strings, and the dutiful marionettes are happily, even if unwittingly dancing to their tune.

With their “Lord and Savior” Barack Obama at the helm, who even needs congress?

Lord knows these guys didn’t.

Victims No More.

As an educator, and as one who has lived through a school shooting incident, I’m not going to sugar-coat anything. What happened in Connecticut (as well as the school district in which I worked) is proof positive that there is evil in the world, and evil will continue to prey on the most vulnerable. The only way to combat this evil is to make the vulnerable less so. If there was an armed teacher or administrator at Sandy Hook Elementary school, there is a great chance that many if not all innocent lives would have been saved. This would have held true in the theater in Aurora, Colorado, and even in Fort Hood, where, ironically, there were strict gun control laws. To deny this is not only foolish, it continues to place our children (and other innocent, law-abiding citizens) in harm’s way. 

A “No Guns Allowed” sign is nothing but an invitation for any low-life scumbag psycho-killer to enter what promises to be a target-rich environment. 

Victims, no more. It’s high time we stop ignoring the dangers and put an abrupt stop to this madness.

So That ______?

I just figured out the insidiousness connected with what passes for policymaking in Washington D.C. and elsewhere:

There aren’t enough”so thats” 

A long time ago I had a wise supervisor (in education, of all things) who said, “For everything you do in your job, as well as for every change you make in your procedure, you need to have a “so that” attached to it. In other words, I do this, so that________.” If you don’t have a good “so that,” then you have no good reason to keep on doing what you’re doing, or for implementing the change you’ve been contemplating. 

Prime example: “We will raise taxes on the wealthy so that_____.”

So that what? So that we can decrease the deficit? 

By all accounts, the tax hike currently being contemplated by the Democrats will produce enough extra income to run the government for a grand total of EIGHT MORE DAYS. And that is a liberal estimate. With the concomitant economic slowdown, more like FOUR extra days. 

So raising taxes so that to decrease the deficit doesn’t wash. 

So tell me, my Democrat friends- what is the “so that” connected to this grand scheme??

Some Post-Election Thoughts

Let me first say that what I’m about to write probably in no way reflects the feelings of Matt, or Mark, or any other contributor to this blog.  Hell, I don’t know if it even accurately reflects how I’ll feel a week from now.  Call it a stream of consciousness as to what I’m feeling at the moment.

I understand the Democrats played a good ground game. I understand we were rope-a-doped. I understand that the Republicans could have done a better job of conveying why Conservatism affords the most people the most opportunity for prosperity.

My question is thus– how can you overcome an opponent who not only can raise as much as you do, but has the added advantage of literally hundreds of millions of dollars more in free advertising and cover, from a group of people ostensibly charged to serve as watchdogs for the people against the government? The media was clearly, demonstrably, more in the tank for the democrat side than I have seen in my entire lifetime. Fox News tried covering the other side. But they’re one network. Difficult when you’re competing against NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN New York Times, ad nauseum.

How do you overcome those kinds of odds? How do you get a fair shot at selling your message?

Something tells me if we ran Jesus Christ Himself as a candidate, he still would have gotten smeared in wall-to-wall negative ads.  His Sermon on the Mount would have been misquoted and taken out of context, The networks would still have dutifully covered for Obama, stating that Jesus is just a poseur Messiah. Obama would promise more largesse, will have claimed to have lowered the rising seas, and would still have won the election yesterday. Seems the kind of world we live in right now. It may take a relatively long time, perhaps a decade, perhaps a decade in a half, until we are so far in the economic gutter that the economic Pridelands will have been picked of every life-giving force by the proverbial hyenas.

Only when the world has gone full Galt and the last of other people’s fruits wrought of productive enterprise have been sucked up and dried, will people understand the damage. By that time, I fear it will be too late. The United States, along with Egypt, Rome, Mesopotamia, Greece, Spain, Great Britain, and other great civilizations, will have been relegated to the books as just another flash in History’s pan.

Call me a negative Nelly, but at least at this point in time, I find it difficult to read the tea leaves any other way. Not that I won’t keep up the good fight, but right now I feel as if I’m taking the last stand at the Alamo.

Game over?