Government and the Hurricane

One of the most disturbing similarities between hurricanes Sandy and Katrina (and others as well, I’m sure) is the astonishing lack of preparation by some of the people who live in the affected areas and who had ample warning of the coming storm.  In my estimation, those in the Sandy area have been much better prepared than the people of New Orleans were.  Still, I’ve been seeing and hearing reports about people being desperate for basic things like food and clean drinking water, even though it’s only been a few days since the storm hit.  Forgive me but what kind of people are forewarned of a massive hurricane coming and they don’t go to the store and stock up on a few basic necessities? 

The answer, I fear, is people who have become so dependent on government that their natural instincts to prepare for an emergency have been slowly erased, like genetic traits that are obsolete.  Instead, these people wait until the crisis is at hand, and their newly evolved instincts kick in:  they whine, beg and steal.

I cannot think of a greater indictment against government dependence.  

What IS Personal Responsibility?

Among the many other things we have seen re-defined at the hands of liberals we can add to that the concept of what it means to be “personally responsible.”  Apparently it is now sufficient to merely mouth the words, “I take personal responsibility” and without suffering any consequences for your actions (or lack thereof) or taking any action, you are to take a bow and be held in the highest esteem for your great display of maturity.  After all, finding ways to bask in undeserved credit is what the Left excels at.

Consider the Benghazi incident.  During his second debate with Romney Obama loftily declared to the nation that he is “taking personal responsibility,” for what occurred there.  But of course he did so without actually accepting any blame, and within seconds of making his declaration he turned around and angrily declared that he was “offended” at any suggestion that his White House was keeping information from the American people.  “I take responsibility but don’t you dare try and hold me accountable.”  That is, in effect, what he was saying.

It comes as no surprise to me when liberals have the arrogance to “assume responsibility” without assuming responsibility.  Always in search of the respect and admiration bestowed upon those who truly behave like bona fide adults – selfless, strong, wise – they try to earn respect through imitation.  But without the spirit and core principles from which these traits arise, they always get it wrong, and they come off as what they are:  children play-acting at being adults.   That’s why they believe that taking responsibility can be demonstrated by merely saying the words.

A real adult does not necessarily need to come out and announce that he is “taking responsibility.”  That’s because it would already be evident in his behavior.  He would expose himself to questioning and face-to-face criticism, and not just with friendly sources.  He would genuinely accept blame when it’s due by saying, “I failed to...” or “My administration failed to...”  He would truly – not just rhetorically – hold people accountable by firing, demoting or otherwise punishing those who significantly contributed to failure.  But Obama doesn’t have to do any of that, because the new normal has now been established. 

The man from the audience in that second debate whose question prompted Obama’s “I take personal responsibility” claim appeared on Greta Van Susteren’s show the following night.  When she asked if he was satisfied with Obama’s answer, his response shocked and dismayed me.  Paraphrasing, he said he was satisfied because Obama “took personal responsibility.” 

So there you have it.  The conventional wisdom used to be that actions speak louder than words.  Under the new normal, words speak louder than actions.

Mitt Romney and the Coming Storm

They say that a storm of monumental proportions is coming to the east coast.  As I write this, the Obama administration is busy formulating their strategy so as not to let this newest “crisis” go to waste.  How much money can we hand out, and how fast.  That will be their calculation.  Obama’s tired old stump speech will be re-written to include an homage to himself as the benefactor of the storm’s “victims,” with not so much as a “gee, thanks,” passed along to the real benefactors – the U.S. taxpayers.

It pains me to be so cynical but I think Romney had better have a plan as well.  And the answer isn’t hard to see if he simply looks within himself and asks, what would I do if this were my community (and it may be, given that he hails from Massachusetts)?  Going forward, Romney should take every opportunity to address the folks on the east coast.  He should call on people to stand strong and take responsibility for themselves and their families by being well-prepared or by getting out of harm’s way.  He should appeal to people to be good neighbors and to assist those who need help getting ready or getting out of the area.  He should press communities to come together to prepare, rather than wait for the government to come along after the damage is done.  By doing this he will not only encourage people in the path of the storm to do what’s best for themselves.  He will be reinforcing principles of personal responsibility and local community strength over helpless reliance on government.  And it won’t hurt my feelings if he takes some of the wind (or should I say hot air) out of Obama’s sails.

Do I think he’ll do this?  No, I don’t.  I think he will listen to his advisors and to the politician within himself rather than the self-made man within himself, and he will talk about what goodies a Mitt Romney administration would hand out if he was in charge. 

Let’s hope I’m wrong.

Fools in Pink

Recently I was perusing various online news pages when I came upon a front-page story about a group of women from Code Pink who were in Pakistan to take part in organized protests against U.S.-lead drone strikes targeting anti-U.S. militants.  One of the things that struck me from the article was a comment made by one of Code Pink’s leaders who said, “People are taking great risks to come here.” 

Are they really?  Let us ponder this for a moment.  They’re going to a place where anti-U.S. sentiment is very strong in order to protest against the U.S.  While there may be a certain amount of risk involved, that risk pales in comparison to the risk taken by those who defy the Taliban.  As if to magically underscore this point, the same news page also had a story about the 14-year old Pakistani girl who was sought out and shot in the head by members of the Taliban while she was at school.  Seems the girl had openly defied the Taliban by advocating education for females in Pakistan, and they decided to teach her a lesson and send a message to other girls who might question the will of the Taliban and the place of females in their society.  The juxtaposition between this girl and the Code Pinkers could not be more powerful and more revealing.  On the one hand the Code Pinkers openly tout their own bravery for actions which, if successful, assists in removing the only real threat to the likes of those who attacked this young girl.  On the other hand we have a young girl who, without ever touting her own bravery, does something truly courageous and stands up to the Taliban.  In doing so she gives the world a stark reminder of who our drones are targeting, and shows what a useful fool looks like when it dons the color pink.

At one time I might have wondered, if the Code Pinkers sincerely want to assist innocent victims of violence and are willing to risk their own lives, why don’t they organize protests against the Taliban instead of the U.S.?  After all, if the Taliban were to be defeated, there would no longer be a need for drones, correct?  That would solve everyone’s problem.  But having studied the Left for quite a long time now, I already know the answer.  In the first place, focusing on the Taliban is just so ordinary and obvious.  Anyone can hate the Taliban but it takes a very special person to understand that the U.S. is the real bad guy here, and above all the Code Pinkers truly want to be seen as special.  Secondly, standing against the Taliban might invite real risk to the Code Pinkers, and really the only blood they want to get on themselves is the fake blood they use as props when they confront civilized folks (like Condoleeza Rice) who they can rest assured will not respond with violence. 

They say you can tell a person’s true character by the things they do when they think no one is looking.  A similar law applies here.  You can tell a true leftist by their propensity to ignore the most evil in society in favor of focusing on those targets that offer the best potential for attention for the least amount of personal risk.

Answering Mitt Romney's Garbage Man

I saw a report today on an anti-Romney commercial featuring a garbage collector who works in Romney’s neighborhood in La Jolla California.  I didn’t see the whole ad and can’t remember the fellow’s name but apparently he was angry with Romney for not being sufficiently sympathetic to him because he has a physically hard job and he’ll be worn out by the time he’s 55 years old.  Like all liberal claims the charge contains a subtle strawman argument – the assumption that Romney doesn’t sympathize with people who work in low-level jobs.  But the reason I bring it up is because it should be an opening to a sorely needed discussion about personal choices and consequences, although it won’t be.

Elections, Barack Obama tells us, have consequences.  Well guess what?  The choices we make in our lives have consequences too, or at least they should.  A 55-year old man who’s working on a garbage truck is, in all likelihood, doing so because he made a series of decisions in life.  Maybe he never graduated from high school.  Maybe he decided higher education was too expensive and too time-consuming.  Maybe he never pursued any other training or educational opportunities that might have given him the skills to advance to a higher level position.  Maybe he was busy raising a family and didn’t have time – that’s a choice too. 

No one in this country is slated to be a garbage collector or anything else in life, that’s the beauty of a free country.  I’ve known many people who started with nothing and overcame hardships to attain success in their lives and their careers.  I’ve also known people who traded higher incomes for other things they valued, such as the opportunity to do something they love, to live where they preferred, to accommodate a spouse or for any number of reasons.  Those are all valid choices in life but they often come at a cost.  The question is this:  who should pay for the cost of your choices?  Do the people who invested the time and money to go to college and earn a higher income owe something to those who chose to spend their time and money differently? 

The natural consequences of our choices in life are nature’s way of steering us towards better choices, thereby fostering a more thriving society.  Ordinarily the job of garbage man should attract young, uneducated men who do it for awhile to make ends meet but who eventually are motivated to take the steps to find better jobs because it is hard, tedious, filthy work.  Unions and government intervention (read leftist intervention) have thwarted nature’s divine plan by creating artificial rewards that wouldn’t otherwise exist; thus we have 55-year old men doing jobs that were intended for younger, unskilled men, and then complaining to Mitt Romney because it’s a hard job for a 55-year old man. 

It is a great thing when the wealthy in a society are willing to share the fruits of their success with those less fortunate; yet it is also incumbent upon society to not artificially insulate people from their choices in life such that personal choices become irrelevant and all of society has to bear the price.  That’s a recipe for a failed society.

Don’t Cry for Pussy Riot, America

If there is one thing you can always count on in this world it is the Left’s unwavering penchant for reducing the sacred principles of free societies to meaningless slogans that serve no one but themselves.  The most recent example of this is the supposed ‘free speech’ incident involving the Russian feminist group, Pussy Riot.  If their name alone doesn’t tell you which side of this debate you should be on, please read on.   

Back in February five members of ‘Pussy Riot’ donned ski masks, tights and short skirts, then stormed the altar during a religious service at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, treating the surprised church crowd to a protest performance aimed at Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orhodox Church.  Three members of the group were subsequently sentenced to two years in prison for “hooliganism” stemming from this incident.  Naturally the Left, who are attracted to phony causes like bears to a beehive, are up in arms.  Sensing a golden opportunity to express righteous but misplaced indignation, some have been quick to vocalize their unhappiness under the false presumption that people actually care what they think.  Madonna showed her support when she performed at a concert in Moscow with the words “Pussy Riot” painted on her back.  Oh what a brave freedom fighter she is!  Was she hauled off the stage and placed in a cell or forced to flee the country under threat of harm?  Well, no, not exactly.  She stayed in a fine hotel where she was pampered like a princess but still, don’t you just admire her courage?  LOL.  Another supporter is Julian Assange.  Enough said.

Let me see if I can accurately paraphrase the Left’s argument here.  “Free speech”  means having the liberty to interrupt someone else’s religious service, commandeer the altar that other people have paid for and force those present to listen to a punk-rock version of your political grievances whether they wish to or not.  Is that a reasonable summation?  Okie dokie.  May I presume then that Madonna wouldn’t mind if I seized the stage at one of her concerts to deliver a speech on the evils of liberalism and the need to elect Mitt Romney while I have a captive audience of Bozo brains?  

It’s becoming trite to point out the hypocrisy in everything the Left does.  By this point, hopefully, it is just assumed.

The children of the Left would never understand this but the “right” to free speech is not a right to impose one’s views on others whether they wish to hear them or not.  There’s a different name for that:  bullying.  That’s what the Left does best.  When you can show me that Pussy Riot was prevented from delivering their message in their own venue or in free venues such as the internet, then we can talk about free speech.  Until then here is my response to Madonna and Assange and all the other Pussy Riot supporters:  shut the hell up.

P.S. to Pussy Riot:

Enjoy your time in jail.  You get no sympathy from me.

What has the Obama Presidency “Revealed” About Obama?

I didn’t see Michelle Obama’s speech the other night, but I’ve seen a few people, including one writer at CNN online, quoting this line from her speech: 

"Being president doesn't change who you are. ... It reveals who you are."

Wow.  That’s quite a nice line, to be sure.  Unless you actually think about it, that is.  Because, even being as objective as I can possibly be, I can’t think of anything good that’s been revealed about Barack Obama by his presidency.

Being president has revealed that, contrary to his criticisms of Bush and the promises made in 2008, Obama obviously has no sincere interest in reducing the debt.  In fact, he’s been quite busy doing just the opposite – multiplying it as fast as he possibly can as if he’s on some kind of game show.

Obama revealed that he doesn’t care about balancing the budget during our lifetimes, because he proposed a budget so absurd that it was laughed out of congress – even by democrats.

If you believe Obama’s claims that he thought an $800 billion stimulus was the solution to our problems and it didn’t work because he didn’t really understand how bad off we really were, then It’s been revealed that he’s clueless about the economy.  If you believe he had other motives in mind, as I do, then it’s been revealed that the health of the U.S. economy doesn’t matter to Obama except to the extent that he needs to give people just enough hope to be re-elected.  Either way, nothing good has been revealed.

The Obama presidency has revealed that he’s an enforcer of socialized medicine, willing to shove it down the throat of every American whether they want it or not.  And it’s been revealed that this took precedence over most everything else in his first term, including jobs.  Also revealed were his plans to socialize the cost of higher education (so that people who chose not to go to college have to pay for those who did), mortgage losses (so that people who take responsibility for their choices have to pay for those who don’t), and losses in the auto industry (so union members keep their jobs at the expense of taxpayers), among others.  He’s a socialist, Michelle.  That’s what’s been revealed.

He’s revealed that his criticisms of the war were just political posturing, as he has continued a similar path to George Bush with a war of his own, minus the will to actually win it.

He revealed that he is a divider of Americans: rich vs. poor, men vs. women, white vs. non-white, gay vs. straight.  There’s a great trait in a U.S. president, eh Michelle?

He’s revealed that this country, under his administration, is to be run by unelected “czars."

He’s revealed that he does not actually believe in transparency in the government, as he boasted in 2008, because he has not overseen a transparent administration. 

I can only assume that Michelle and her speechwriters were counting on people not to think too hard about what has been revealed in this Obama presidency.