Independence Weekend Quote of the Day - Friday, July 1st

‎"Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases." 


~John Adams

Freedom (Caution: Do Not Use Without Government Supervision!)

”You never want a serious crisis to go to waste, and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn’t think you could do before.”

Those are the words from President Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel back in 2008 during the presidential campaign. Emanuel broadly applied this idea to a wide range of problems, implying that had the federal government simply stepped in to supervise the situation, each crisis could have been avoided.  From health care to energy reform, education to regulatory reform, and even in the fiscal and tax areas – “the solution,” as Emanuel claims, always leads back increased government control.  This morning, in the wake of President Obama’s newly-appointed oil spill commission and energy Czar, we see another example of this government fix-it mentality implying that government can and will fix all of the nation’s problems.

We’ve got an unstoppable oil leak? No worries, the government will swoop in and ensure it never happens again.  We don’t have health insurance?  No worries, the government will step in and ensure we never have to pay a high premium again.

Our politicians preach on responsibility – corporate responsibility, environmental responsibility, and social responsibility, always with the subtle suggestion that the current problems of our country somehow link back to being the direct result of Bush-era greed that could have conveniently been avoided if only we had a controlling body to referee the rules and lifeguard the economic pool. The magic ingredient needed to fix each of this country’s problems, according to this administration, is control. Just add government intervention.

Are we listening to their rhetoric? Are we paying attention to what they are implying?

Our politicians insinuate that if those countless masses of irresponsible CEOs and greedy individuals had simply exercised a bit more fiscal responsibility, if they just cared a little more about the future generations, if they had only showed concern for the environment instead of their corporate profits, if they simply controlled their excess, if only they had someone to watch over them and make sure they behaved – none of this would have happened.  In other words, our politicians want us to believe that if only we had let the government control the situation from the beginning, the risk of failure would have been removed.  In Emanuel’s own words: a crisis requires immediate government intervention and provides “the opportunity to do things that [government] could not do before.”  I.e., if we had only given the government the power it needed to control the situation, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.  

Federal government intervention under the banner of national emergencies is not a new idea to the American public.  Teddy Roosevelt once gave a speech at the turn of the last century on “The New Nationalism” in which he claimed that our money and property only belongs to us if there isn’t a better government-determined use for it.  He stated that personal property is “subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.”  Nationalism, as Roosevelt stated, “puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage.”  However, because our country is founded on principles equal opportunities, which grant us free access to life, liberty and the use of our personal property (with minimal government intervention) but does not necessarily guarantee equal outcomes, this call to Nationalism has been rejected over time.

Yet, with all the political lecturing as though our government were a nurturing parent desperate for more opportunities to monitor its reckless  and unruly children, er, constituents, who simply can’t fend for themselves, our politicians continue to push their controlling agenda on this country with no regard for their own call to responsibility, moderation, and self-control.

Who oversees the overseers?  Who regulates the regulators?

The recent housing collapse is largely attributed to the federal government’s meddling involvement with bank loans via the Community Reinvestment Act, which was enacted over 30 years ago. Our country is teetering at the grand canyon of national debt, we’re on the verge of losing our triple-A lending status (which basically means that our interest rates used to pay back our federal government’s debt could skyrocket if we continue along this path), and our national debt is on the verge of being unsustainable, also because our federal government for years has overstepped its fiscal boundaries.

Do our politicians have room to lecture on self-control and responsibility?

No, they do not. 

When has our government proved that it is above the vices of the common man? Does the government stop its reckless spending that will inevitably bankrupt our country?  No, our Congress continues to sneak in additional spending that we simply cannot afford. However, the American public is catching on – we are aware that we cannot control and sustain our debt, so our politicians have found a way around the minor inconvenience of the public calling for less spending by citing each plea for additional funding as a national emergency. The checks may bounce, but what does it matter to our politicians if the bill had “good intentions” of fixing a national emergency?  What does it matter if our hard-earned money is used for a national cause determined not by populous vote but by self-regulating politicians?

Take H. R. 4899, for example, a bill currently on the table in the House of Representatives and marketed as an act proposing “emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief and summer jobs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes.” Despite the bill’s blatantly broad description projecting an image of good-natured responsibility and assistance in the wake of current economic issues, it’s a prime example of how our government never lets a good crisis go to waste.  Slyly tucked forty pages into H.R. 4899 is a proposed $174,000 paycheck to Representative John Murtha’s family, because apparently, according to our politicians, entitlement funds for the family members of dead politicians qualify under the “for other purposes” emergency category.

Where in the Constitution have the states granted the federal government the right to take up mandatory tax collections at the expense of the public to fund their “charitable” causes?  How does this $174,000, for example – which happens to be the equivalent of an additional one-year Congressional salary payment – qualify as an emergency fund in the eyes of our politicians? The current spending habits of our elected officials and their blatant disregard and reckless spending proves that they would rather burden the American family for generations with debt through taxes for money they think they’ve earned a right to freely distribute. I highly doubt that when Teddy Roosevelt shaped his definition of Nationalism, that taxpayer-funded collections for families of deceased politicians qualified as the new “national need.” 

It’s always easy for politicians to spend someone else’s money, but the redistribution of our money and property at the expense of self-appointed political perks does not fall into the same category as emergency funds either, which is why Nationalism will always be rejected.  The people inherently know that regardless of how bad a problem is or how big a crisis gets, there can never be an end-all government solution for everything. The public also inherently knows that not every problem is an emergency nor will increased government control ever remove a nation from the risk of a future crisis, because the individuals making up our collective government body will always be subject to the exact same vices and flaws that the government seeks to villainize and control in the private sector. 

~Gee 

Thank You, Mr. President

Dear President Obama,

Recently, you expressed your amusement at Tea Partiers, those of whom have been the primary organized vocalization of the people’s frustration at the out of control government spending and corruption. Mr. Obama, you even had the audacity to suggest that the American public should thank you for the current state of the tax system.

Well, considering that the taxpayers employ you and pay your salary, I’d say you should be thanking us.

Mr. Obama, you should be thanking the top 50% of the earners in this country (those making over $26,000), as they are responsible for about 95% of the government’s income, according to the IRS. 

You should especially be thanking those making $60,000 and above (the top 1/4 of the earners), since this “wealthy” group is responsible for paying 86% of the nation’s federal income tax, also according to the IRS.


Considering that 25% of the population contributes more than 4 out of every 5 dollars that the federal government collects, I don’t quite see why you think we need to “thank” you for this gross abuse of the tax system and blatant wealth redistribution structure.  Likewise, considering that bottom 50% of earners barely pay any federal income tax (if they pay ANY at all), exactly HOW can this group thank you for tax breaks?  After all, surely you aren’t implying you offer tax breaks to people who aren’t paying into the system in the first place, are you?


Regardless, we recognize that since your approval ratings sink to a new low with each new day, we thought we would appease your desperate need for a pat on the back by offering our thanks for a few other topics.

So without further ado: Mr. Obama, thank you.

Thank you for your conceited, false belief that you can solve the problems of the world.  Thank you for your bloated self-love of yourself and desperate need to remind yourself how "great" you think you are.

Thank you for pandering to the unions, Andy Stern, and the thugs at SEIU, who beat a conservative African-American man unconscious who was handing out flags which read "Don't Tread On Me" at a St. Louis town hall meeting.

Thank you for paying homage to Mao on the White House Christmas tree in the Blue Room.
  
Thank you for Anita Dunn, whose favorite political philosopher is mass-murderer Mao Zedong, and all the other admitted communist revolutionaries you have appointed within your cabinet and who helped elect you.

Thank you for Barney Frank, who not only paid $20,000 (unreported to the IRS) to Steve Gobi, a male prostitute who later became Frank’s personal aide but also later had a relationship with Herb Moses, a “mortgage guru” and high-level executive at Fannie May from 1991 until 1998, who helped develop many of the sub-prime lending programs that ultimately led to the collapse of the housing market.

Thank you for Charlie Rangle, who “forgot” to report $75,000 in income from a rental property in the Dominican Republic, a rental property that he charged at least $500 a night to rent.

Thank you for Ron Kirk, your nominee for U.S. Trade Representative who owed $10,000 to the government in back taxes. 

Thank you for 9-11 Truther Van Jones, who after "resigning" from his Green Jobs Czar position, has been forever divested of his power and influence in your administration as he sits on the board for the progressive think-tank known as the Center for American Progress.


Thank you for your hypocrisy: “The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president of the United States.” – then, Sen. Barack Obama

Thank you for flying all the way across the globe to Copenhagen and making time out of your hectic schedule in attempts to restore honor and dignity to our much despised country and giving an enthusiastic pitch for the Chicago Olympics bid.

Thank you for earning winning   being given the first Nobel Peace Prize for participation.

Thank you for appointing Nancy Killefer as your "Chief Performance Officer" to monitor government waste, even with her failure to pay employment taxes on household help for 1.5+ years.

Thank you for Rahm Emanuel, your Chief of Staff.  Thank you for his failure to disclose +$100,000 in taxable income, and especially thank you for his “service” on Freddie Mac’s board of directors during which time that government-baked lender was accused of fraud for lying about their income back in 2000, 2001, and 2002.  Thank you for that generous contribution to 2008 stock market crash.

Thank you for Vincent Fumo, the former Pennsylvania Senator, who was convicted and found guilty for 137 counts of corruption, including defrauding the state Senate, etc. of +$3.5 million to pay for his private (lavish) lifestyle, in addition to racketeering, bribery, destroying evidence, and obstruction of justice... Not to mention his 1974 encounter with the law when he was the target of a 44-count indictment for mail fraud. 

Thank you for hosting dinner parties with ex-terrorist Bill Ayres.

Thank you for criticizing former President George Bush for playing golf during wartime, and thank you further for, in your first year and a half in office, managing to play more rounds of golf than did President Bush in his entire eight years in office.

Thank you for believing the American people are either too dim-witted or ignorant to either read or understand the health-care bill.  (Thank you for signing into law a health care bill that none of your Congressional supporters took the time to read before passing.)

Thank you for Charles W. Freeman Jr., your selected candidate to the National Intelligence Council, who had to withdraw his nomination because of questions about his questionable financial ties to China and Saudi Arabia.

Thank you for identifying Reverend Wright as your spiritual mentor.  His hate speech against our nation (and against white people) is an enlightening look at your “spiritual” philosophies.

Thank you for Monica Conyers, a Detroit City Council Member and wife of (D) Rep. John Conyers, who was involved in bribery.

Thank you for William Jefferson, who took more than $500,000 in bribes for business deals and was indicted on 16 counts of racketeering, obstruction of justice, and money laundering.

Thank you for Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, CA and your friend/ supporter during your campaign, who misused copious amounts of money from AmeriCorps, even though you fired Inspector General Walpin for obtaining proof of Mr. Johnson’s misuse, calling him “confused,” despite having personally co-sponsored a bill that should have protected Walpin from political retribution for his outstanding investigations.

Thank you for never thinking anything is outside of your reach or grasp - including the takeover of 1/6 of the American economy.

Thank you for your ties to ACORN, laughing when questioned if you knew about their brief month of de-funding, and lying bold-faced to the American people when you stated you were unaware that ACORN received federal funding.

Thank you for Cass Sunstein, head of the office of information and regulatory affairs, who has not only advocated bestowing legal rights on animals, but is now also championing the creation of fake websites and the employment of outside interest groups to act as independent supporters of government policy who would then infiltrate opposition (conservative) websites. 

Thank you for downplaying and failing to understand the threat of a nuclear Iran.




Thank you for having the most liberal voting record in the Senate. Our country might have actually believed your campaign lies about you being "moderate" and "bipartisan" had it not been for the proof available to us all via the internet.

Mr. President, thank you.

Thank you for opening our eyes as a nation. If it weren't for you, the public --your constituents-- might have allowed the long-standing precedent of fiscal irresponsibility and corruption to drag our country to a slow, painful end, but thanks to you, we're taking swift action to rectify the course of our great nation.


Most of all, we would like to thank you – thank YOU– for reminding us that our liberty and freedom comes from the Almighty God… and you, Sir, are not Him.