How to Train Your Democrat

Dog trainers will tell you that the most important tool for training your dog is the tone of your voice.  By changing the volume and tone of your voice you can communicate a wide array of different messages to your dog and help to make him a better, more obedient pet.  So important are vocal tone and volume, in fact, that the actual words you speak are often irrelevant.  Except for a handful of commands to which the dog is trained to react, volume, tone and pitch will most likely dictate his response to your commands.

Recently I’ve noticed with great fascination that this works on democrats as well.  Their masters can tell them anything, and even if it is clearly untrue or defies basic logic, as long as the words are delivered with the proper technique democrats will respond as trained.   Tell them, for instance, that “You didn’t build that!” and as long as there is angry conviction in your voice it won’t matter that they DID build that.  They will respond on cue and bark along obediently.  Defiantly shriek, “What difference, at this point, does it make!” and they will howl in agreement despite the fact that the true story of the Benghazi attack and the tragic deaths of four Americans really does matter.

Just the other day Debbie Wasserman Schultz angrily told women democrats, “What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back.”  Really?  Walker, of course, was the one who freed Wisconsin women from the grip of the union thugs, but the obvious absurdity of her statement was ignored by the lefty ladies so well-trained to salivate at any gratuitous comparison of republicans to cavemen.
And who could ever forget Bill Clinton?  Apparently his raspy southern accent and “charm” (ahem) were enough to convince democrats that a man with a long and sordid history of mistreating women was sincerely compassionate about women’s causes.  Bill Clinton was, in the words of top dog democrat Barbara Streisand, “just swell,” and the old southern charm is still working today as evidenced by the abundance of puppy love that still surrounds the aging woman abuser.

The true master, though, has to be Barack Obama.  He is the ultimate democrat whisperer, and could probably convince them to hop up in the car and go to the vet to be neutered without pain meds just by doing his bobble-head walk and broad grin at the same time.  Professor Obama waggles his dainty finger, furrows his brow and invokes a scolding tone to inform the dogs – er, excuse me – democrats, that congress won’t act (translation:  they won’t do his bidding) on this or that , and right on cue they erupt in angry barking as if his indignant tone suggests he speaks the truth.  Then he sticks his nose in the air and declares with just the right mix of defiance and resignation that he must make the ultimate sacrifice and “act alone,” and they clap like trained seals while he shreds the Constitution, their Constitution.  Empty promises delivered in loud, flowery rhetoric are all that’s needed to make democrats sit up pretty and beg with their tongues hanging out.  Confidently delivered untruths about the economy, Obamacare or our withdrawal from violence around the globe are predictably met with drooling, panting and vigorous tail wagging.

Good dogs.

 ~CW

 

Progressives: Moving us “FORWARD” To the Dark Age

Until recently most of humankind throughout history has shared an ongoing, positive struggle to improve and elevate every aspect of human existence:  the human condition, the human spirit and the ways in which humans live and co-exist.  Most of the world has moved from caves and huts and a harsh existence to enjoy the luxury of comfortable shelters and ample food.  The instinctive, human quest for knowledge and progress has led to marvels in science and technology that have vastly extended the human lifespan and improved our quality of life.  The days of certain tyranny, when class, race, gender and geography deprived most people in the world of the freedom to enjoy much of what life has to offer, has largely yielded to the human drive for liberty and self-determination; and the knowledge that freedom and autonomy are possible has given rise to hope where tyranny still exists.  Through religion, the arts and the continual refining of our cultures humans have sought to elevate our existence to something far from and above an animal-like existence.  We have endeavored to lift the spirit and make the human experience something noble, precious and worthwhile.  We have learned, as in the lyrics made famous by Sammie Davis, Jr., to live, not to merely survive.

The purpose of recounting this ongoing and largely universal struggle is to contrast it with the repression and destructiveness that’s been increasingly inflicted upon us by some in the name of “progress.”  In the name of “progress” we are told that we must “celebrate our diversity,” and the remarkable strides we’d made towards becoming a genuinely color-blind society - where the differences between us on the outside were gradually being obscured by the uniting of our shared values – are being lost.  In their place we see the rise of resentment and hatred, fueled on by phony declarations of “war” being waged on this and that group.  We are told we must be “tolerant;” but only when tolerance ultimately undermines the societies we’ve worked and sacrificed for.  That’s true progress, we are told.

In the name of “progress” we are informed we must be liberated in our sexuality, and where once we aspired for sex to be regarded as a sacred and private expression of love between committed people, now many behave as little more than animals in heat.  Popular songs celebrate casual sex and misogyny.  Dirt bags in movies and television compete to see who can turn depravity into the biggest pile of dollars, and with each competition the moral standards for entertainment sink to a new low.  From Shakespeare to “Dating Naked.”  Thank God for progress.

The cherished state of marriage that promised security and greater prosperity to couples, children and communities has given way to an epidemic of fatherless children, as liberals proclaim the legal union to be of little importance, unless of course you are gay.  More and more of the hard-earned income of those holding fast to “old fashioned” values goes to support those who have been liberated from responsible behavior in the name of “progress.”  More Section 8 housing, rehab centers and prisons are continually being built to deal with the children of “progress.”

Where once art was defined by the awe-inspiring works of people like Da Vinci and Michelangelo, now we are treated to bizarre creations made from human waste and live displays of masturbation to admire.  Check out the arts section of that ‘progressive’ pigsty, HuffingtonPost.com, for a sample of what constitutes “art” in the hands of “progressives.”  Aren’t you impressed with our progress?

Over the centuries people dreamed of a future where hard work, ingenuity and self-discipline could earn the rewards of comfort, pleasure and security in life, and people could aspire to a better existence than the average ant.  That dream had become a modern-day reality for many but alas, the “progressives ” have decided that our comfort, pleasure and security have become too great for their liking.  In the name of saving us from “climate change” and other boogey men they conspire to drive up the cost of energy so that more and more of our labor is spent earning the money just to drive to work or to stay warm.  You think you’re free?  You’re not free if you can’t afford the gas to travel anywhere.  In the name of progress they drive up the cost of food with their anti-fat and anti this and that regulations.  Forget about vacations and other luxuries.  Work, ant, work.

 

Keep thinking “progress.”

~CW

Liberalism, Killer of “Compassion”

The premise used to be quite simple:   Come here legally; be responsible for yourself and your family; assimilate; contribute to the economy; don’t cause any trouble.  In exchange you are welcome to share in the promise of the American dream. That was our standard, and it was working quite well for the country and for immigrants, which of course meant that the Left had to mess with it, because anything that is working well is a threat to liberals.  It makes them irrelevant, and we can’t have that.  Thus it was time to begin dismantling all of the natural disincentives for being in this country illegally.  Demonize the INS; fight against English as our official language; encourage the celebration of diversity and non-American heritage; insist on free schooling and welfare; misapply the 14^th Amendment; deprive police of the power to check for ID and arrest those here illegally; limit deportations; weaken the integrity of our elections.

 

And the results are in.  The population of illegal aliens in the U.S. has swelled to somewhere between 20 million and…who knows?  Our prisons are crowded with illegals costing U.S. taxpayers billions.  Americans have lost their lives and their property to illegals who commit more serious crimes.  Our schools struggle and divert resources away from our own children to educate those here illegally.  Our healthcare systems are overloaded.  American tax dollars find their way into the pockets of illegals via fraud and waste, and these dollars are sent “home” to other nations. 

Now, as tens of thousands of children and adults flood illegally into the U.S. from other countries, liberals are crying for “compassion.”  I’m sorry but there is no place for ordinary compassion in a completely irrational world.  When compassion is no longer defined as sympathy and help but instead means playing sucker to all those with the willingness and shrewdness to take unfair advantage, I say “No thanks” to being “compassionate.”  If that leaves some who truly are victims out in the cold, they can thank liberals for that, because liberals have proven time and again that they cannot be trusted with my compassion. 

Need another example?  Look at our bloated and corrupted welfare system, courtesy of the American liberal.  Each year billions and billions and more billions are being stolen from taxpayers to be given to freeloaders and scammers.  As the sister of a man with severe mental illness who can’t possibly support himself I watch with outrage, frustration and heartache as money that’s intended to help the truly needy is stolen by parasites, enabled by liberal politicians who want to buy their votes and pat themselves on their backs for their philanthropy.  I know firsthand that the need truly exists for some and yet I can’t blame anyone whose patience for “compassion” has been exhausted.  Thanks, liberals.  I hope you’re proud. 

The nature of liberalism is such that there is nothing worthwhile that it won’t seek to destroy, because it is in the destruction that they find their power.  It occurs both intentionally and as the unintentional result of the never-ending pursuit to gratify the liberal ego.  To those who are acting intentionally to place this nation in a state of chaos, I understand that your cries for “compassion” are nothing more than a scheme to bully this nation into caving in to the Left’s demands for the agenda they like to call “reform.”  To those who have fooled themselves into believing that they are acting for the public good and who can’t understand what’s happened to the compassion that Americans are known for, I say, “Look in the mirror and you will see the culprit staring back at you.”

~CW

An Irony to Beat All Ironies

“President Barack Obama exhorted Iraqi leaders to come up with a political solution to governing their nation because "if they don't, there won't be a military solution to the problem," he told CNN in an interview Friday.

Obama wants to see Iraq create a command structure that includes Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, which are the country's chief groups, he told CNN's Kate Bolduan.

"We gave Iraq the chance to have an inclusive democracy," Obama said on the eve of U.S. military advisers arriving in Iraq to help the government besieged by militant extremists.”

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/20/politics/obama-iraq/

I have to marvel at the ability of the CNN reporter to keep a straight face as Barack the Usurper called for “inclusive” government in Iraq.  Mr.-I-have-a-pen-and-a-phone has done every imaginable thing within his power and beyond to exclude a chief group of citizens in this country from exercising their Constitutional rights to share power, so the irony of his lecturing Iraq is quite rich.   

Take a good long look in the mirror, Barack.  You have no business preaching to Mr. al-Maliki on anything, least of all the equitable sharing of power. 

"We gave Iraq the chance to have an inclusive democracy," he says.  Where does he suppose we came up with such an idea?

~CW

Why 9-0 is a Mixed Blessing

We now have 13 unanimous Supreme Court rulings against Barack the Usurper, and conservative media outlets have been quick to emphasize the shut out in the rulings:

“Supremes Smack Down Obama Administration 9-0 For 13th TIME SINCE 2012”       ^~ Daily Caller

“Supreme Court Rules Unanimously Against Obama for 12th and 13th Time Since 2012”       ^~ National Review

“UNANIMOUS! Supreme Court Rules Obama’s ‘Recess’ Appointments UNCONSTITUTIONAL”     ~ Tea Party News Network

It’s not hard to understand why a 9-0 ruling would garner extra attention.  When even the liberals can’t bring themselves to vote with Obama, you know the overreach must be bad.  It’s only natural that conservatives would want to highlight that, so I apologize in advance for being a party pooper but I worry that undue celebration of these unanimous rulings gives us short-term satisfaction at the expense of nurturing the growing ignorance in this country with respect to the role of the court.   I say that because the added emphasis on the unanimous nature of these rulings unintentionally reinforces the notion that the SCOTUS decisions have greater legitimacy when everyone agrees.  While it’s easy to see how that thinking arises and there may be a certain element of truth there, the true and only test of a good decision ought to be whether or not our Constitution was upheld, regardless of the size of the majority.  Thus, conservatives should be asking themselves:  “Do we want to dilute the perceived legitimacy of correct but non-unanimous decisions by touting the vote count over the substance?”  The answer should be “No.”  If this seems like a petty criticism, consider that the headline on Huffington Post immediately following the Hobby Lobby decision screamed 5-4! In giant bold letters the other day (I can no longer find it).  What do you suppose they were saying to their readers?  What subliminal message were they trying to convey?  5-4 proves the decision was partisan and, therefore, illegitimate. 

Thanks to liberals the Supreme Court has progressively (pun intended!) come to be viewed in the most cynical way.  Intended by the Founders to be an integral part of our checks and balances against government abuse of power, democrats have predictably tried to turn it into a political weapon for advancing their own anti-constitution agenda.  To that end they have waged a largely successful campaign to change the way people think so that they unquestioningly accept this notion of the SCOTUS as a politicized extension of the other branches of government.  People evaluate the make-up of the court based on notions of philosophical “balance.”  They’ve been groomed to forget that the justices have a duty to uphold the law and only one side is philosophically committed to doing that.

We have a tragically precarious situation with our Supreme Court right now, that being the fact that at least four of our nine justices don’t understand or agree with the purpose of the Constitution and have repeatedly failed to uphold the oaths of their offices without consequence.  By all rights they should have been impeached long ago or better yet, never allowed on the bench to begin with.  Every conservative, particularly those with the biggest microphones, should be talking about what the Constitution says and how each ruling either upholds or undermines it, because that is the true measure of the court’s legitimacy no matter what the vote count is.

~CW

Not-so-Random Thoughts on Iraq

Once upon a time two companions embarked on an adventure in an unfamiliar land.  As they made their way through the woods they came to a fork in the road and began to argue over which path to take.  Pointing to the path on the right, the first traveler said, “I think that road leads south to the desert.  We should go left.”  The second man said, “The path on the left may lead us into unknown dangers.  We should go right.”  Unable to agree, one took the path on the right while the other took the road on the left.  Eventually the one headed south does indeed come to the desert.  Believing he can cross he keeps walking but ultimately the heat and lack of water proves too much and he becomes weak and disoriented.  Knowing he will die he thinks to himself, “My friend was smart to take the other road,” and then he perished.  The second man found himself deep in the jungle.  Walking along he inadvertently stumbles into a tribe of savages who practice cannibalism.  He is taken prisoner and as he awaits his fate he thinks to himself, “My friend was smart to take the other road,” and then he is killed and eaten.

The moral to the story is this:  don’t presume that because things didn’t work out as you planned that the road not taken would have guaranteed you sunshine and roses instead.

   

That is the basis of my message to the frothing-at-the-mouth leftists and libertarians who are cackling with glee at the chaos in Iraq and congratulating themselves for being “right” in their predictions, as in this comment (unpublished) left at my blog:

“Looks like you Neocons were wrong about Iraq after all, eh? Ron Paul and libertarians, on the other hand, have been proven 100% correct...”

Fairly quiet while things appeared to be stable, the so-called “libertarians” now cruise the web in search of the hated “neocons” so that they can gloat.  Of course, gloating is cheap when you’ve never been in a position to make the difficult decisions and never had to own the consequences, but they aren’t above it.  Why should they be?  They have no history of their own to defend, no paths they’ve been entrusted to choose between where the future was uncertain.  Still they take comfort in the tortured logic that says the failure met on one path somehow automatically vindicates the other.  Sorry to put a damper on the fun but that simply isn’t the case.  Whatever challenges there have been with respect to Iraq there is no way of knowing what different challenges we might have faced had we followed another path and not gone to war in 2003.  That is a fact.

The Iraq war and the debate that led up to it has been the perfect case study in revisionist history, thanks to democrats who were for the war until election time came and then suddenly, seeing that things weren’t going so well, they scrambled to save themselves by declaring that they’d been lied to.  So-called libertarians like “Unknown” jumped on that bandwagon and both factions pounced on what they believed to be a golden opportunity to turn the debate on Iraq into a referendum on conservatism.  Never let a crisis go to waste.  With an either-or mentality that evoked scenes from the George Carlin skit where anyone driving faster than you is an “asshole” and anyone slower than you is an “idiot,” the leftists decreed that a vote for John Kerry or Ron Paul meant you were peace loving while a vote for Bush made you a war-mongering “neocon.”  The absurdity of such a position, a basis for humor in the Carlin skit, was lost on the Left. Given what they were trying to do I found myself wanting to defend Bush no matter what the criticism rather than allow any misstep in Iraq to be touted as evidence of some broader failure of conservatism.  Such is the unintended consequence of politicizing that which ought not be politicized. 

Any reasonable debate about Iraq needs to begin at the beginning, going back to what we knew and didn’t know in the months and years leading up to the war.  It needs to consider what circumstances constitute a real threat to the U.S. and how real threats should be dealt with.  I have offered to go that route with many leftists and so-called “libertarians” who’ve come along to cry their cries of “neocon!” but in the years I’ve blogged not a single one has been willing to engage in honest debate.  Not one.  Doing so would mean having to concede that reasonable arguments were made on both sides, for and against war, and that either path had its own risks.  Alas, that kind of measured objectivity doesn’t serve the greater goal of taking out the political competition, and so rational debate has been rejected. 

Right now we are seeing the state of the world under the stewardship of the Left which, by the way, closely resembles the libertarian view.  Oh they’ll cry that they’re dealing with what was left to them by Bush, but every president inherits the world of his predecessors and it is his task to apply the talents he claimed to have and make of it what he will.  This isn’t 2010.  Obama has had five and a half years to prove to us that the path he wanted with respect to foreign and military policy is superior to that of his political foes.  I admit that I’m biased but so far I’m not impressed, to say the least.  I would love nothing more than to have a crystal ball with which to see how the world would look if Ron Paul were president.  Call me jaded but I suspect his supporters might find that the real world has its own way of undermining what sounds really swell in theory.  Maybe “Unknown” should be thankful, because as long as the presidency remains out of reach to the libertarians no one can prove that they don’t have all the answers.

~CW

Squeezing the Balloon

Whenever I hang a picture on the wall by myself all that I require is a child-sized hammer, a nail and one squinting eye.  When my husband gets involved, however, we have to drag out levels, drills, pencils, measuring tapes, stud finders, calculators, anchors, screws and other assorted tools that I can’t even name.  When we’re finished, you could hang a Sumu wrestler on my wall and he ain’t goin’ nowhere.  Once I asked the man, “If all of this is necessary, how come the pictures I’ve hung up never fall down?” to which he replied, “Because you don’t understand the laws of physics; therefore they don’t apply to you.”

As cool as it is being exempt from the laws of physics, I’m afraid I must prove him wrong.  I understand, for instance, that if I squeeze on one end of a balloon, the other end will expand as the air is forced into it.  If I squeeze hard enough, the balloon will burst as the air must find a way to escape.  It’s a simple fact.

Human nature and society are a lot like the air in that balloon.  People react to circumstances in very predictable ways and, left to their own devices, they will find a way around the obstacles that are placed before them, even if that means bursting the balloon.  If, for instance, the gov’t tries to reign in the cost of Medicare by reducing payments to medical providers, those providers will restrict their availability to such patients and/or will pass the shortfall on to non-Medicare patients by charging them higher prices.  Artificial constraints on Medicare act like pressure on a balloon, resulting in higher fees and insurance rates for everyone and opening the door to a duplicitous form of wealth transfer.

When the housing market went bust, liberals got busy trying to figure out ways to “protect” people from the consequences of their bad choices or the bad choices made by others that led to the bust.  They went to work meddling with the ability of banks to foreclose and to do what they naturally would to protect themselves, and this led to consequences for people far removed from the original transactions.  The balloon burst and the losses that banks were forced to absorb were passed on like escaping air to investors and other consumers in the form of higher fees, tighter credit and economic contraction. 

We can look at example after example of the unintended or INTENDED consequences that occur when those on the Left start messing with the balloon, squeezing it, pumping more air into, trying to make it into something it was never intended to be, until the balloon bursts.  On the horizon we see Obamacare, the trillion-dollar student loan mess that’s looming, welfare and other major crises-in-the-making, but for now I want to talk about illegal immigration because it’s the one crisis that many Republicans seem most clueless about. 

Immigration laws exist for a reason, most people understand that, and to paraphrase an astute observation made by Dana Perino of “The Five” the other day, a country without borders isn’t really a country.  That’s a simple but powerful truth.  America’s immigration laws, albeit tainted over the years, were designed to protect this nation and to ensure its sovereignty, its economy and its culture and traditions.  At least that’s what an immigration plan ought to do, correct?  A plan that’s properly enforced results in a balloon of a certain manageable size, and if and when the pressure gets to be too much due to demand the natural and ideal outlet, assuming that the forces are in place to keep the balloon intact, is for continual re-evaluation of and potential adjustment to our immigration policies.  Do we need more short-term or long-term workers?  What kinds of skills do we need?  Is immigration growing our resources or putting a strain on them?  All of those questions could be considered and debated with the proper deliberation and study they deserve when the balloon is treated with care and the air within it controlled but of course it’s too late for that.  Predictable forces from inside this country, including the unbridled appetite for cheap labor, bountiful rewards in the form of American taxpayer-funded services arranged for by the Left (and abetted by some who claim to hail from the Right) and neglect of the border combined to create unchecked demand that far exceeded the capacity of the balloon.  Illegal immigrants, like the molecules of air that were contained inside, have escaped and spread like water from a bursting dam, and the engineers who might have taken the time to carefully re-design or reinforce that dam are running to and fro, scrambling to catch up with the water everywhere it chooses to go in a hopeless effort to prevent the floods and erosion that are sure to come.

I may be no physics genius but I know a balloon that’s being stomped on when I see one, and right now there are balloons popping left and right. 

Can you hear them?

˜CW