A little more on this belonging to the Government nonsense

Apparently, some people are either OK with being useful idiots for their political party or they indeed believe that they are the property of the government.

In response to the DNC’s “We all belong to the government” ad that was run at the convention and which we covered here, some delegates at the convention were asked what they thought of it.

.





These responses simultaneously sadden, disappoint and anger us.
These people are utterly clueless though we will hand it to the statist-left of this country in successfully substituting “government” for “community” or “country” and getting the Democratic Party as a whole to buy into this sick fascistic concept hook, line and sinker.


Here’s a memo to you folks that might be a little wobbly on the concept (not to those in the video – those zombies are long gone): In closing his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln spoke of “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”


The government is of us, the people. The DNC has it completely the other way around, they know it and they completely agree with it. As collectivists and not individualist, of course, your baseline belief system is that the government is at the center of the circle from which all else comes forth.


When you hear statists call for higher taxes on the rich, they’ll talk about fairness but that’s just window dressing for what they really believe and that is the fact that money is not really yours rather it’s the government’s and it is only the government’s kindness that lets you hang on to whatever the tax code allows.


This is soft tyranny, pure and simple – this belief that we are somehow owned by or belong to the government. We fought a war of independence to upend such thinking and practice and, for now, we will content ourselves with fighting an electoral war and one of winning hearts and minds to upend such thinking and practice here in early 21st century.


The RNC was slammed for being a convention of hyper-individuality. The fallibility of human kind may make that type of thinking dangerous for many but the 20th century was nothing more than a cautionary tale of the miserable and deadly folly of hyper-collectivism.

By the way, we hate broccoli

.
The following ought to scare the living daylights out of anyone with a remote interest in our diminishing freedom and liberty.

A Couple of months ago, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Beth Brinkmann was standing before the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, defending the federal law requiring Americans to buy government-approved health insurance, when Judge Laurence Silberman asked her about broccoli.

He wanted to know whether a law requiring Americans to buy broccoli would exceed the federal government’s authority to regulate interstate commerce. “No,” Brinkmann said. “It depends,” she added.

Silberman evidently was troubled by that shifty answer. Last week, he expressed “discomfort with the government’s failure to advance any clear doctrinal principles limiting congressional mandates that any American purchase any product or service in interstate commerce.” Oddly, he voiced that concern in the context of a majority opinion upholding the health-insurance mandate.

Dissenting Judge Brett Kavanaugh congratulated the majority for its candor in “admitting that there is no real limiting principle to its Commerce Clause holding.”

So, that's it? That's what we fought a Revolution for? Casting off the tyranny of a foreign power in exchange for the the soft, benevolent tyranny of a domestic one?


Recall our old friend Pete Stark (D(eranged)-CA) defending the constitutional mandate in ObamaCare on the grounds that Congress can pretty much do whatever the hell they please.

(If you've been following this blog for any length of time, then you are probably familiar with this clip because it remains perhaps the best 3-1/2 minutes in YouTube history of a direct summation of the dangers of overreach at the federal level. The young lady in this clip absolutely nails it. She sounds like a San Diego tea partier to the core)

"What limitations are there on the federal government's ability to tell us how to run our private lives?"

Stark proves himself to be a clueless imbecile and should've been run out of town on a rail for the content of his answer as well as the condescending tone in which it was delivered, especially right at the end.

If you think for one moment that ObamaCare is about improving upon the quality of the health care delivery system or bending the cost curve downward or any of the other justifications and/or reasons, please recall this exchange between an informed citizen and a power-mad "public servant" who bluntly explains there is no real restraints on the control the federal government can have over your life.

We fought a war some 235 years ago because of people like Pete Stark and the 20th century was nothing more than a study of the human misery that accompanied the philosophies of nations which were aligned with those of Pete Stark.

Link of the day

... but first, a very important message from Alexis de Toqueville speaking to us from Democracy in America:

after having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd.

The will of man is not shattered but softened, bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupifies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrial animals, of which government is the sheperd.

(paragraphs and italics, ours)

If any of this sounds relevant, it should because it's called being killed with kindness. And remember, this is when the "good guys", i.e., the people that know what's best for you, are in charge - just wait 'til the bad guys get behind the wheel.



Totally related and under the category of Newspeak...

Out: "Government"

In: Your "Federal Family"

Harrison has the details here.

How did I get stuck over here on the left side of this post

Got back in from the desert yesterday evening. We did have a chance to spin around the 'net just enough to realize there is a lot going on out there with respect to tax day and local politics and our posts over the next few days will most likely reflect that.

In the meantime, please enjoy this short Milton Friedman clip from 1978 at Stanford University.



"Government doesn't have any responsibility, people have the responsibility"

If there is anything we do know will result from ObamaCare, it will be a paradigm shift with respect to charitable givings and volunteerism. As one of the most charitable nations on Earth, we possessed a collective responsibility to care for the poor and those who had been victims of unforeseen circumstances, be it natural disasters or medical difficulties.

With government intervention into the health care decisions of our lives being thrown into overdrive with the advent of ObamaCare where the role of government as the provider of well-being becomes more and more increased, will that cause a paradigm shift in our national psyche that deadens the sense of urgency we have for charitable giving and volunteerism?

We're going to find out and we are by no means optimistic about the results.

Soft tyranny and Tony the Tiger

*

Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius said today that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is developing a new regulation that would require food manufacturers to display nutritional information on the front of packages.

This would mean that the front of a Wheaties box, for example, would display not only the smiling face of a famous athlete but also declare how many calories from fat are in each serving.

“Busy shoppers will be able to go into grocery stores and have some easy to understand information on the front of packages giving them quick data on what is a healthier choice,” said Sebelius at the U.S. Capitol.

“The Food and Drug Administration right now is working with food manufacturers to not only update the nutritional labeling on the back of packages, which right now is written in small bar codes and pretty indecipherable and hasn’t been updated in 20 years, but to move to a front-of-package labeling strategy,” said Sebelius.

To prove just how completely ridiculous this all is, do a quick survey of the food packaging in your kitchen or pantry. Where's the nutritional labeling? Our survey revealed that fully 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the labeling was on the side panels.

And written in small bar codes? That's the price code, Sebelius, you idiot.

And indecipherable? Maybe that's the key. The ratio of ingredients in a product that cannot be pronounced is inversely proportionate to the healthiness of that product.

Monosodiumglu... eh, pass.

Water, Yeast, Hops, Malt, Barley... now, we're talking.

But all this speaks to the dangers of letting people, particularly the government, act on your behalf because they claim it's good for you.

Sebelius, in one paragraph, proved she doesn't have a stinking clue as to what she's talking about. Yet, she is going to subject food manufacturers, grocery stores and other retailers to the added expense and inconvenience of these new completely unnecessary rules.


* See. 10 vitamins and minerals right on the front panel.





You want these cute kids crowded out by labeling?

Decaf?

Standing by for the outrageous outrage over the House approval of the Senate health care reform bill from our new friends in the Coffee Party movement.

If they decry the undo influence of lobbyists on Capitol Hill and the “corporatism” that describes today’s public/private marketplace, then surely they must object to the compulsory nature of Obamacare where for the first time, the federal government is forcing citizens to purchase a good or service, in this case, health insurance coverage, from a private entity – the very health insurance companies that have allegedly been getting fat off the American people for years now.

And you think the healthcare industry lobby is influential now, just wait until it’s Congress telling them what medical practices they will be required to cover and dictating the deductible amounts for specific drugs and so on and so forth.

Surely, the hypocrisy of demonizing the health insurance industry and then turning around and handing them 30 million new customers would gall the Coffee Party to the degree they would stand with the Tea Party in opposition to this sham of a bill.

We can imagine that this is not the HopenChange they were waiting for. The Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid and all the other backroom bribes, special-interest deals and general whoring-out that was required for this once-in-a-generation legislation should definitely be an anathema to the good-government instincts of the Coffee Party.

And surely, they must be disappointed in the man whom we are assuming most of them voted into the Oval Office as it was he who was going to change the way business was done in Washington and it was he who was going to usher in a new era of bipartisanship, cooperation and understanding in this country. Yet, it is he who will sign this illegitimately-fashioned and fatally flawed bill into law.

The cynic in us says that, yes, yea verily has Obama delivered on his promises. Any amount of corruptness, rank partisanship, naked power-grabbing and toxicity that existed previously in Washington has been exceeded by a degree we never thought possible. Change we can believe in is change we can now see with our very eyes.

So, what say ye, Coffee Party? Here’s your opportunity to prove to America you are not the statist shills for the Obama agenda we believe you to be. Prove us wrong. Prove us wrong by standing with the majority of Americans in opposing Obamacare.

Addendum #1: We’re calling you out also, ACLU, on the grounds of the compulsory nature of O-Care.

It's the freedom, stupid

President Obama is insistent that health care legislation gets passed through Congress and on his desk for his signature… Now! This, despite the fact that the majority of the provisions contained therein won’t take effect for 3 or 4 more years (except the taxes… count on those immediately).

It’s apparent that porkulus, cap and trade and health care reform aren’t as advertised. Porkulus wasn’t really about stimulating the economy as the administration now admits but rather about payoffs and establishing a baseline for all future spending. Cap and trade is not really about controlling carbon emissions but instead, increasing regulation of “unsavory” energy sources in favor of “correct” alternative energy and flat-out guilt for this country achieving the highest standard of living on the planet. And health care reform is certainly not about improving the quality of health care and controlling the costs but rather it is about establishing a framework by which government can intrude more and more into your personal matters.

So what gives? Why are proponents of the President’s agenda rushing at full speed to see their implementation when they themselves can offer no coherent defense of each new chink in the armor that is seemingly revealed on a daily basis?

What we are witnessing with the Obama agenda cram-down is a manifestation of the basic and fundamental distrust that statists hold for people exercising their freedoms and living lives largely unconstrained by proper rules of etiquette as outlined by them. Do they not know that bearing more than two children, grilling red meat, drinking Lite beer and driving SUVs is simply a shameful lifestyle?

We’ve held for years that the contempt the Wal-Mart haters have for America’s largest private employer does not have so much to do with Wal-Mart being non-union but rather the people inside, both the employees and the customers. Employees that have the temerity to declare they actually enjoy working for Wal-Mart and the customers with their children, aunts, grandfathers, etc. in tow, snatching up the bargains, eating at the in-house McDonald’s, buying silk plants and box wine and which all contribute to the ramshackle, outdoor bazaar feel to the place on a typical Saturday afternoon.

Wal-Mart at rush hour is the very picture of diversity that statists pay lip service to yet the white coastal effetes that dictate statist policy are loathe to recognize, let alone, admit… that’s America, mom-jeans and all.

We never thought that buying a horribly loud Hawaiian shirt for $8 could also be a delightful act of socio-cultural defiance… so make that two horribly loud Hawaiian shirts.

H/T: NRO

P.S. Absolutely no rhyme or reason for the picture of the '58 Chevy Bel Air taken at the weekly La Mesa car show a couple weeks back. It just felt right.