Losing the Power of ME

The spark that inspired this post occurred several years ago when I attended a city council meeting in my town on the subject of widening the road that abuts my neighborhood.  I happened to be in favor of the widening but most of those present appeared to be against it (because tripling the population without expanding the roads somehow preserves “quality of life”).  A woman whom I recognized from my neighborhood got up to speak and began by saying, “I think I speak for everyone here when I say we are not in favor of this plan.”  This made me pretty angry.  Who was this stranger who presumed to speak for me?  How dare she? 

Since that time I’ve had to battle others who’ve attempted to usurp my power by virtue of some real or imagined association.  I was on the board of my HOA when the adjacent farm land became the subject of debate regarding its development.  A home builder was asking the City to re-zone the land from low density to high density so that he could squeeze more homes onto the site.  Needless to say many residents in my neighborhood were opposed to this.  At my urging, however, the Board took no position on it, and this did not sit well with some of the homeowners.  Essentially what they wanted was for the Association to fight the plan.  I had to explain that the HOA exists for the expressed purpose of maintaining the common areas of the neighborhood and enforcing the covenants – period.  It is not our duty to fight this battle but more importantly it is not our right to presume to speak for all of the homeowners with respect to what happens with the land next door.  What about the residents who were okay with the plan (and there were some of those)?  Sadly, the principle that each person owns the right and freedom to choose to be the sole spokesperson on his own behalf is a foreign concept to some. 

These experiences opened my eyes to the reality of the fragile nature of individual power and liberty.  We are in a constant struggle to preserve our own power, often in ways that we don’t even realize; which leads me to Lesson #1:

Any time you attach yourself to a group for one purpose you become vulnerable to those who would syphon away your power by hijacking the mission of your group, party or association, and this will come at the expense of your personal liberty.    

 

A prime example of this is the labor unions.  Supposedly created to bargain with employers on behalf of employees, unions are notorious for using (or should I say abusing) the power and money trusted to them to advance the political agendas and power of its leadership without regard to the personal political inclinations of its members.  What you gain in work benefits comes at the great cost of empowering those who wish to control the bigger picture. 

And then there are groups like the AARP.  The AARP began as an association of retired teachers needing health insurance but has since grown exponentially in membership and in political influence by expanding its services to offer a broad range of discounts and other benefits.  It admits to (or should I say brags of) being an advocacy group but frequently advocates on the side of issues and agendas that starkly conflict with the principles and ideals of many of its members, who may not realize what’s going on.  Those who agree with the AARPs activist agenda are enjoying greater power at the expense of those who don’t, and this same dynamic is going on in thousands of organizations throughout the country. 

Corporate executives are getting in on the game now too.  Not long ago Overstock.com issued a statement about “the company” standing in support of same-sex marriage, as if its employees are no longer entitled to their own views on the subject and must adopt the group view dictated by Overstock’s executives.  What brought this on?  Was there some issue about Overstock selling a rug or couch to a same-sex couple?  What gives Overstock’s management the right to presume to speak for all of its employees on an issue like same-sex marriage?  Whatever happened to each individual speaking only for themselves?  Ditto for Starbucks on the subject of race and every other company that has the audacity to presume to speak for all of its employees on matters of personal opinion unrelated to their work.  It’s a peculiar and perverse new style of corruption, in my humble opinion.

All of us are susceptible to the temptation to take power that doesn’t rightfully belong to us, there’s no doubt about that; but can anyone debate that those on the Left have elevated this loathsome practice to an art form?  Consider this quote from the Communist Party USA website:

“One of the most crucial ways of increasing the strength and unity of the working class as a whole is organizing the unorganized. Working-class unity depends on uniting all the diverse sectors of the multiracial, multinational working class in the U.S. … Speeding up the organization of unorganized workers is one of the most important challenges to labor and all progressive forces.”

“…and all progressive forces.”

“Unite.” 

“Organize.”

Turn your power over to us and sell us your soul for a few more easy dollars.  And the only question people ask is, “Where do I sign?” before the years go by and then they begin complaining about the sad state of the world.  So here’s Lesson #2:

Like flies to a dead body, every group or association that creates the opportunity to usurp the power of individuals and place it into the hands of a few will inevitably see progressives creep their way into leadership positions.

What’s most frustrating is that we don’t always have a choice about the associations we become party to.  Everyone has to belong to the club of citizenship somewhere, so it’s no surprise that the Left persistently preys on this special opportunity to rob us of our individual power and liberty and take it for themselves.  Just listen to Barack Obama in Tuesday night’s State of the Union Address (or as I prefer to call it, The Annual Scolding of all Non-Democrats) as he detailed a long laundry list of what he and his leftist cohorts have unilaterally decided our membership now obliges us to do or to give:

• “We” must provide “free” college
• “We” must retrain people who lose jobs (in addition to providing unemployment benefits) and provide “wage insurance”
• “We” must reward the businesses that Obama & Company approve of
• “We” must cure cancer
• “We” must prop up Obama’s donors in the “clean energy” industry
• “We” must invest in the future (they’ll define this for us)
• “We” must manage “our” coal and oil resources (which means they will manage it for us)
• “We” must put aside our instincts and ignore the reality of radical Islam

None of these things, and so much more that’s been demanded from us over the decades, were part of the bargain when the Constitution was ratified, of course.  And yet we live under the illusion (or pretense) that the Constitution acts as the by-laws for our little club.  So Lesson #3 goes like this:

The power of WE usually comes at a cost, and that cost is the power of ME. 

You can never escape the club of citizenship, so if you cherish your individual liberty and power you’d better stand up and defend the Constitution … and never stop.

~CW

Judge Judy and the Truth about “Public Assistance”

One of the reasons the progressive puppet masters love big, centralized government so much is because it makes it easy to hide the systematic corruption that they’ve engineered.  Massive amounts of wealth can be neatly extracted from hard-working, tax-paying citizens and transferred to people who are lazy and corrupt without agitating taxpayers too much, since they never really see where their money is going.  That’s because taxpayers generally live in a separate world from the low-lifes who steal from them, staying cheerfully insulated from the ugly reality that threatens their futures.  The anonymity of it all enables leftist elites like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi to talk in altruistic terms about “spreading the wealth,” and “…extending the vital lifelines for struggling families…” so that liberals can happily pat themselves on their backs and conservatives dare not protest too much.  But the reality of what’s happened with those hard-earned tax dollars under the guise of liberal charity should give even the most brain-dead liberal a sick feeling of repugnance.  That’s where Judge Judy comes in.

On Judge Judy, viewers can see a daily parade of pigs at the government trough, thanks to the Left and with special thanks to the Obama Administration.  You’ll see “students,” young and old, squandering their student loan money on cars, gifts, vacations…you name it.  Anything but school.  So what?  They’re betting they’ll never have to pay it back and they’re probably right.  Who needs an education any way when the taxpayers can be forced to support you whether they want to or not? 

You’ll also see a shockingly high number of show participants receiving disability checks, even though it’s clearly obvious that they’re healthy enough to work in some capacity.   Under Obama’s watchful eye of the public treasury, nearly anything qualifies as a “disability.”  Just recently I watched an episode where a 19-year old man was receiving “disability” payments because he had lost two family members (years apart) and was deemed to be traumatized.  That’s on top of the Social Security benefits he receives, mind you.  Mild autism?  You’re disabled.  Dyslexic?  Prone to hangnails? I don’t know but you may as well try. 

On Judge Judy you’ll see grandmothers who get paid by the state (i.e. you) to take care of their deadbeat children’s children.  You’ll see tattooed baby-mommas suing their tattooed baby-daddies for stealing their big screen TVs while learning that your tax dollars are supporting them and their children.  You’ll see lots of people who make a living taking care of grandma or Aunt Edna, because they’ve discovered that the state (i.e. you) will pay them to do it.  Oh, and let’s not forget the income tax “refunds” for people who paid no income taxes.  I see lots of those. 

These are the real people to whom your wealth is being transferred.  They can’t get a job, but they’ve managed to learn how to milk the system.  No one is checking to see if they really are disabled, or if they’ve recovered from their “accident.”  No one is checking to see if they’re really in school, working on that degree.  Judge Judy does her best to expose them for who they are and embarrass them but most don’t get it or don’t care.  Relying on the kindness of strangers, especially when you don’t need it, is not the humbling experience it used to be, especially when the stranger (i.e. the federal government) has been stripped of any human qualities.

I know all too well that there really are those who are truly in need.  My brother is one of them.  Mentally ill and absolutely incapable of supporting himself he’s had to rely on Social Security most of his entire adult life.  His experience and his need only make the Left’s intentional raping of the treasury that much more tragic and appalling, for ultimately he and others truly in need are the ones who will suffer when the pigs eat the trough dry, and American’s compassion has hardened into cynicism. 

Bryce Covert, a leftist writer for The Nation, wrote not long ago: 

“The Hillary Clinton running for president today as a champion for families struggling to get ahead necessarily has to be one concerned about poverty. It’s well past time for her to acknowledge how we have failed the poor.” 

Covert has absolutely no clue about how right he was.  The Left has failed the poor and everyone else.

If it was within my power, Judge Judy would be required viewing, at least for high school and college students and perhaps liberal journalists too, because they need to see the ugly truth of who their wealth is being “shared” with and what constitutes “struggling families” in the eyes of the Left. 

~CW

            

TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME

I’m not the first person to use that headline, but I’m the first I know of who isn’t suggesting that TDS applies to Trump’s detractors. 

The conservative love affair with Donald Trump befuddles me.   It’s like watching a shy friend who’s long shared her dreams of finding her perfect Prince Charming but then up and marries the first guy who pays her any attention, even though he is nothing like the Prince that she’s talked about her whole life. 

Conservatives have spent the last, oh I dunno, 20 years or so pining for a “true conservative,” or so I thought from the endless blog posts and comments saying as much.  But now they seem willing to forget much of what they’ve talked and written about because something new and interesting has appeared on the scene in the form of Donald Trump.  Trump is like a shiny object being dangled in front of a crying baby.  His unrestrained speeches are intoxicating to a citizenry that is starved for authenticity.  That much I do get.  But at some point even a crying baby realizes that the shiny object cannot satisfy what is really ailing him, and I’ve been waiting for a similar realization to awaken conservative supporters of Trump, yet so far it hasn’t happened. Therefore it’s time to pose this question to my conservative friends: 

Does principled conservatism matter?

If your answer is yes, then you have some soul-searching to do if Trump is your candidate of choice. 

Principled conservativism means that the positions one takes on issues such as Second Amendment rights, property rights, the proper role of the federal government and the right to liberty, among others, are derived from certain core beliefs.  Those core beliefs should include a belief in the rule of law as necessary to a successful society, and mutual agreement on certain basic rights as the basis for the rule of law.  Those basic beliefs are what inspired our Founding Fathers to write and ratify our Constitution and Bill of Rights.  When we entrust someone with the power of the presidency, we should do our best to ensure that they share the same core beliefs. Anyone who looks to other means of guidance when deciding questions about the government’s exercise of power is likely to get it wrong much of the time.  It is akin to the difference between a good doctor who draws on his understanding of the human body and knowledge of disease to treat a patient versus the lousy doctor who treats only the symptoms, temporarily relieving the pain while the cancer continues to grow until it is life-endangering.  Liberal influence on our government has turned it into a cancer that threatens our nation’s existence unless we get the leadership of a principled conservative who lets the Constitution guide his decisions and whose mission is to protect our rights.  That’s why principled conservatism matters. 

Now back to Trump.  What principled conservative would give hundreds of thousands of dollars to help elect liberal Democrats and sell out his fellow citizens for his own personal gain?  What principled conservative would expect the election of leftist Barack Obama to be “Good for the economy?”  What principled conservative advocates socialized healthcare?  What principled conservative thinks Eminent Domain for private enterprise is a good thing?  Like everyone else I have cheered Trump for getting in the face of liberals and I do admire, to a certain extent, his uninhibited honesty, but to draw on my earlier analogy - just because he’s a good kisser doesn’t mean I’m ready to marry him.

The other problem with Trump is that he’s often an egotistical, chauvinistic ass who has no filter between his brain and his mouth.  That might be tolerable in a true conservative who embodies everything else we want but with Trump it merely deepens the mystery of his appeal, at least to me. There’s a not-so-fine line between refusing to bow to the PC police and just being plain obnoxious, and Trump crosses that line on an almost daily basis with the slightest of provocation and the fact of the matter is, we would be hard pressed to find a true conservative who behaves this way.  Even worse is Trump’s habit of denying what we clearly heard him say, a character flaw that reminds me of the current occupant of the White House and doesn’t bode well.

I was initially willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, but then I listened very carefully to the things that he was saying, and the things he wasn’t saying.  I never hear Trump talk about rights or the size of the federal government.  I never hear him talk about the Constitution.  And I paid attention to the things he said and did in the past, because just as Barack Obama’s past was a window into what kind of president he would be, so it is true for Trump as well, and I don’t like what I see in that window.  Yes, I know I’m a party pooper.  I’ve probably crossed the line from being tolerably annoying to being outright dislikable, but so be it.  I have to keep it real.

~The Ever Annoying, CW

If Not For Liberals

If not for liberals, Americans would not be fighting over what to do about tens of millions of illegal aliens in this country.  It is liberals who make life in America comfortable for illegals because they are the great enablers.  They enable the illegals to take advantage of free schools, free healthcare, free public assistance, unearned income tax “rebates” and other freebies at the expense of American taxpayers, because being charitable with taxpayer money proves how special and compassionate liberals are.  They enable illegals by shunning the laws and intimidating law enforcement such that illegals, who are supposedly cowering in the shadows, have no fear of publicly protesting or appearing on TV to advocate for “rights” that we never agreed to.  Everything, even our ballots, must be offered in Spanish, according to the liberals.  “But CW,” the liberals will say, “What about the employers who give them jobs?  They’re not all liberals.”  Employers contribute to the problem, no doubt; but employers want illegals because they’ll work cheap, and illegals work cheap because they are subsidized by taxpayers due to the efforts of liberals.  Take away the freebies and suddenly the illegals must make the same wages as Americans to live and take care of their families, reducing their willingness to settle for the lowest paying jobs and their attractiveness to employers.  If not for liberals the unnatural incentive to come here would not exist, we would enforce our laws and our illegal immigration problem would be easily managed.

If not for liberals college students today would not begin their adult lives saddled with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.  The vast majority of our colleges and universities are run by liberals.  Under their oversight administrative expenses have exploded as have “educator” salaries and benefits (because, after all, administrators and educators are mostly liberals).  Liberals figured out how to get “the government” (i.e. taxpayers) into the funding loop, and with an unlimited supply of funding in the form of student loans they continue to raise tuition every year and find new and creative ways to funnel money to their liberal comrades.  Just ask Hillary Clinton and other leftwing elites who command hundreds of thousands of dollars to give speeches to poor, pliable college kids where they explain to them how they are victims of the system.  They are preparing the environment for the next step of the plan in which angry students demand that their debt be transferred onto the backs of taxpayers.  Then the cycle will be complete, with the Left having near total control over the lucrative money machine we ignorantly call “education” (indoctrination would be more accurate).

If not for liberals the U.S. would not be speeding towards bankruptcy because so much of our money is spent on welfare.  This is a two-pronged enablement for which liberals deserve bonus credit.  First, by encouraging the “sexual revolution” and eliminating the stigma against unwed motherhood they enabled the disastrous explosion of single-parent households and created the conditions whereby so many are struggling to make ends meet.  They then compounded their misdeeds by throwing open the pantry and treasury doors to reward this disastrous behavior, ensuring that it will continue and grow until the money runs out and, in all likelihood, civil war ensues (Don’t believe me?  Look at the riots in Greece when they tried to make very modest “austerity” cuts).  The fact is, the money ran out long ago, and the powers that be are staving off civil war through more and more debt.  If not for liberals we could correct these mistakes, but anyone who dares to suggest that there’s anything wrong with single-parent households is immediately attacked as “mean” and “out of touch” by the liberals, and any Republican who suggests cutting back the welfare trough is fought with venom by liberal Democrats because this is the constituency that keeps them in power.

If not for liberals, we would still have high-quality, affordable healthcare in this country, because whenever there is ongoing demand for a product and no problematic obstacle to creating an adequate supply, the free market does a great job of meeting people’s needs.  But enter the liberals, and suddenly the market must contend with over-regulation, out-of-control lawsuits, unnecessary restrictions on access to insurance providers, unnecessary requirements that increase the cost of insurance, and freeloaders out the wazoo (Medicaid spending ALONE was nearly $500 BILLION dollars in 2014), all of which results in an overtaxed system that drives costs higher and higher to keep its balance, as well as a system that’s been made ripe for fraud, waste and greed.  Conservatives have long been screaming for a return to free market principles to restore the market’s natural ability to provide high quality healthcare at the best price, only to be demonized by liberals because this means their constituents will have to pay their own way.  So if you didn’t like the $36,000 bill you just got for your outpatient hernia surgery and you can’t sleep for fear of losing your insurance, thank a liberal.  Oh and don’t worry about that bill.  You only have to pay a $5,000 deductible.

If not for liberals we would be a nation united rather than a nation divided.  Liberals preach that we should “celebrate our differences,” when instead we should celebrate what we share in common.  Liberals claim to want unity, yet never miss an opportunity to turn isolated incidents of racism into an indictment of the entire white race, and they do so with the help and leadership of our current president.  Yet just as the transcendence of racism requires that we judge people as individuals, so too must we judge those who make mistakes as individuals.  When have you heard a liberal say that?  Never.  Fueling the anger and division is helpful to the advancement of liberalism; reason and perspective, not so much.

If not for liberals the world would not be in a fearful quandary over Islamic extremism right now, because liberals are the enablers of terrorists.  It’s liberals who support weak borders and tell us we must not profile, because profiling is discriminatory.  Someone needs to educate liberals on the fact that “discrimination” is not always a negative word.  Of course we should be discriminating when we try to identify the terrorists among us.  That’s instinctive.  That’s common sense.  But liberals are always telling us that we must ignore our instincts and common sense.  It’s liberals who fought on the side of Muslims when they wanted to build a giant mosque near the site of 9-11, because the more outrageous and offensive something is to average Americans the more special they believe themselves to be by supporting it, and their specialness means everything to them.  Certainly it means more than the security and prosperity of this nation.  Liberals make it impossible for societies to embrace policies of tolerance, because liberals are too special to be merely tolerant.  Only blind appeasement and irrational reverence will do for the average liberal, which is why they refuse to acknowledge the truth about Islam and they sneer and denounce Republicans who want appropriate precautions before we allow thousands of Muslim refugees into our homeland.

There is much debate these days about “existential threats,” and what poses the greatest threat to this nation.  Some say it’s ISIS.  Some say it’s Iran.  Some say it’s Russia, or North Korea or China.  Some say it’s “climate change” (LOL).  I shake my head when I hear this talk, because the biggest threat we face, bar none, is the mental disease known as liberalism.  Liberalism is the enemy within – the great enabler – and it lives safe among us, protected by the very system that it seeks to destroy.

~CW

Reject Paul Ryan as Speaker

The big news this morning is that Paul Ryan is granting us the enormous favor of running for speaker, providing he gets to call the shots.  The image of House members and political junkies waiting breathlessly for his decision is amusing when you consider that electing Ryan would pretty much make the contentious ouster of Boehner completely meaningless.  If anyone from the Freedom Caucus sector of the House wants Ryan as Speaker that is bizarre, and if moderates are cheering Ryan on in the hope for unity they are tone deaf. 

I used to have great respect for Paul Ryan until I started paying closer attention to the things he was saying.  The more I learn to observe and read between the lines of our politicians the more I understand that there are basically three types of people running the branches of our government.  First there the Obama types whose mission is to abuse and misuse their power to take from and control the people that the government is supposed to serve.  Next there are people like Ted Cruz whose mission is to defend us against tyrants like Obama by upholding, restoring and enforcing the Constitution, which was designed by our fore fathers for the express purpose of limiting the reach of government.  Then there are those who see their roles as peacemakers between the tyrants and the constitutionalists.  That third category is where Paul Ryan falls.

Like many republicans, I believe Paul Ryan probably came to Congress with reasonably noble intentions and he’s probably a nice man; but noble intentions have a funny way of getting sidetracked when people focus on math instead of on principles.  Ryan, known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the national budget, concerns himself with making the numbers work as if the principles that form the basis of this nation don’t matter as long as you can balance the budget.  This is the greatest of ironies, because restoring the government to its limits under the Constitution would naturally resolve our spending problems.  Maybe Mr. Ryan doesn’t want to be out of a job.

My lightbulb moment with respect to Ryan came when he began talking about “means testing” as a way to save Social Security and Medicare.  As I made the case in a prior post (“Means Testing and Marxism,” March 2013), means testing equates to classic Marxism:  “From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.”  I have challenged readers before, and will do so again now, to explain to me how means testing is any different than Marxism when it comes to the final result.  The only difference is that wealth transfer was the undisguised objective of Marx, whereas for Ryan it is the consequence of the misguided goal of saving socialism in America.  In addition we know now that Mr. Ryan is cozy with the amnesty crowd and hasn't stood up against raising the debt ceiling. 

This nation as we know it is in grave danger, perhaps irretrievably so, and we need a warrior, not a compromiser.  I beseech the members of the Freedom Caucus to stand firm and make the ouster of Boehner lead to something meaningful.  Say “NO” to Paul Ryan.

 ~CW

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Socialism is Theft. Any Questions?

Socialism.

As a word, I’m sure it sounds fairly innocuous to the mindless robots that seem to make up most of the world’s population these days.  After all, the base part of the word is “social,” and heck, who doesn’t like being social?  And if you look at the official definition of socialism in the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, you still won’t find anything that sounds all that sinister to a mindless robot: 

Socialism:  “A way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies.”

Or:

1.  “Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods;”

2.  “A system of society or group living in which there is no private property;”

3.  “A stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done;”

See?  It’s just another economic theory.  Just another “system.”   The definitions don’t talk about how “the government” comes into possession of the means of production, or how what was once private property magically becomes public property.  It ignores that whole ugly process as if it doesn’t exist, but we know the truth, don’t we?  In order for industries to be owned and controlled by “the government” or for private property to cease to exist the industries and the private property must first be forcibly taken from the people who once owned them.  In other words, they must be stolen.  That’s the ugly truth about socialism that gets conveniently glossed over.  That’s why someone like Bernie Sanders can openly declare that he’s a socialist and not be viciously rejected by people who presumably would acknowledge that theft is immoral.  The robots hear “socialism” and they’ve been programmed, thanks to public education run by the Left, to think of it as just another morally equivalent economic alternative to free market capitalism. 

It’s no such thing.

In a sane world where personal rights are respected, anyone who openly advocates socialism as a societal “system” should be – at a minimum – arrested and confined behind bars for a very long time, because there is no difference between advocating socialism and suborning THEFT.  Pray tell me what is the difference between proposing “free” (i.e. with money forcibly taken from taxpayers) healthcare, college and daycare and simply calling outright for people to steal from those who have something they want?  There’s zero difference, which is why socialism is THEFT - period.

The news accounts of the thousands of thieves-in-waiting who are filling the seats at Bernie Sanders’ rallies and salivating at the prospect of having government as their gang leader should sicken anyone who values economic freedom and wants to preserve it for their children.  Make no mistake - the socialists at the Sanders rallies are no better than the smash and grab gangs we see on the news who take what they want with complete disregard for the people they steal from.  The only difference, by and large, is the color of their skin and the absence of hoodies.  How do these people face themselves in the mirror at night?  What went wrong in their upbringing that they are lining up for their chance to steal from their neighbors and fellow citizens, all the while patting themselves on their backs for their virtuousness?  More importantly, why are we tolerating this blatant threat to our property rights? 

It’s not helpful that we have the usual wonks who get out their calculators (sound familiar, Wall Street Journal?) and turn this issue into a matter of dollars and cents rather than right versus wrong.  They answer the socialists with calculations of how much their socialism is going to cost.  LOL.  Since when are thieves persuaded by their victims’ arguments of how much the thieving will cost them?  Oh, and did I mention that socialists are liars too?  They will always insist that everyone is better off if we give the socialists the power to steal.  As I’ve said in the past ad nauseam, the minute free people respond to the socialists/thieves by debating the cost of the proposed theft, the free people have lost.  Period, end of story.  This is an issue of rights, and it doesn’t matter if it costs ten cents or ten trillion dollars.  We are the U.S. of A., and people are supposed to have rights to their property, a principle that is entirely lost on socialists and wonks with calculators.

Bernie Sanders is openly and unapologetically running on a platform of outright THEFT, and he and his supporters should be in jail; but I will say this for Bernie:  at least he is an honest thief.   And don’t be fooled by those who dismiss Bernie Sanders’ chances because he’s a proud socialist/thief.  Virtually every member of the Democrat Party is a socialist by word and deed, regardless of what label they give themselves.  Obama had the same goals as Sanders, but unlike Bernie he wasn’t so honest about his plans and his cunning approach helped him significantly advance the agenda of the thieves in his capacity as gang leader.  Hillary Clinton is just another thief in a pink pantsuit.  For that matter, there are a number of Republicans who fit in that ugly shoe as well.

Earlier I asked, “Why are we tolerating this blatant threat to our property rights?”  The answer is that we’ve been programmed to accept theft in the guise of social policy for close to a century now, and those who understand what’s going on also understand that there is no political solution to this problem.  That’s right, read between the lines.  That’s one reason that the socialists/thieves are laser-focused on dismantling our Second Amendment rights and disarming the citizenry.  The other reason is that socialism thrives when they can divide a population with wedge issues, but that’s an essay for another day.

~CW

Tipping the Scales of Justice

The wise and brilliant Thomas Sowell once wondered why we need to use precious and costly court time and resources to hear the family and friends of murder victims testify about the impact of their losses.  Paraphrasing his question from my memory of his post from many years ago, Sowell’s question went something like this:   “Can’t we just assume that the loved ones of those who’ve been murdered are angry and sad about their loss?” 

I agreed with him then and still do.  Cold as it may sound, courts are not supposed to be a forum for victim venting, but more importantly, this habit we’ve adopted of devoting part of a trial to impact statements tarnishes what is supposed to be blind and impartial justice.  Does the murderer who kills a homeless man with no one to mourn his loss deserve any less justice than the murderer who kills a father of four?  Does the child with no one to testify because his own parents murdered him deserve less justice than the murdered child whose parents are devastated by their terrible loss?  Some people will be missed more than others, but all people deserve the same impartial justice, likewise for the perpetrators.

What reminded me of Sowell’s post from so long ago were reports from the James Holmes (Colorado theater shooter) murder trial where, over the past few days, the loved ones of his many victims have been testifying about their deceased and injured loved ones.  One Fox News reporter informed viewers that: “The judge told the jurors over and over again that they need to put their emotions to the side and use reasoned, moral judgement in deciding the proper sentence for Holmes…”  Doesn’t it seem counter intuitive to incorporate hours and hours of emotional testimony from devastated loved ones and then ask the jury to disregard their emotions and use “reasoned, moral judgment?”  Why not create a separate forum for the loved ones of the victims of convicted criminals to address the perpetrators, one that does not involve all of those people necessary for conducting a trial and does not require jurors to listen to emotional testimony which they are then expected to disregard?

Just food for thought…

~CW