Archive for the ‘Tyrants 'R' Us’ Category

When waging an effective war, you need to know your enemies and recognize your friends. You have to be able to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. And perhaps most important, you need to know on which side of the fence you’re going to be. Thanks to Arizona’s new illegal immigration law, we’ve gotten a meaningful look at some of the adversaries in this New American Civil War. And we know on which side of the fence many have chosen to stand.

When Arizona Governor Jan Brewer decided to give her state law enforcement officers the power to enforce federal immigration laws, liberals began concocting hysterical scenarios, as if the concept of enforcing the law could only lurk within the dark chambers of a totalitarian police state. As usual, when the Left’s statist agenda is exposed, they go on an unhinged offensive against any and all who dare to challenge them.

In a collective fit of outrage, liberals everywhere have been calling for boycotts of all things Arizonan. They’ve reduced a serious issue to a pseudo-racial political PR campaign. Playing the familiar race card, mayors, governors, and media pundits across the country have gone on the warpath in an attempt to intimidate Arizona into backing off. In their eyes, Arizona is now a racist rogue state—an enemy to be subdued into submission.

Another one of their tactics is also a familiar one. When liberals lack a sound argument, they just paint the opposition with over-the-top Nazi imagery. Phoenix Suns General Manager Steve Kerr’s comment was fairly typical of the sort of dysfunctional rhetoric coming from the Left. You might have thought he was talking about Vichy France 1940 rather than Arizona 2010 when he said, “It’s hard to imagine in this country that we have to produce papers. It rings up images of Nazi Germany.”

Melodramatic paranoia aside, here on Planet Earth, most Americans can’t go a week without having to produce some form of papers. If you write a check or use a credit card, a personal ID is often required. If you go to the movies, proper authorization documentation must be presented, or you won’t get in. At sporting events, you’re even required to proceed to a specific location determined by your access papers. If you loiter, an official will escort you to your pre-registered destination. They know who you are, and they know where you sit.

If you drive a car, you need three different official papers, and if you refuse to surrender any of them to a police officer, you’ll be headed for jail. At Disneyland they’ve taken it a step further. A Disney agent will ask that you wear a bright red wrist band that publicly reveals your access authorization for all to see.

Meanwhile, the Left puts on phony displays of sympathy for Latinos who they insist are the primary target of immigration laws. Maybe so. But any rational person who desires to show solidarity with the Latino community would be shouting from the rooftops about putting an end to illegal immigration. Even Latino labor leader Cesar Chavez understood the simple and obvious truth. As an ardent supporter of enforced immigration laws he knew that illegals siphoned off government funds as well as jobs. Yet the Left refuses to confront this simple reality. Their negligence is something that should be considered criminal and anti-American.

When Congress passed the now infamous health care reform bill on March 21, it confirmed what I had suspected for some time. We were in a war between big government leftists and those who oppose them. Only the naive or those in denial can consider this an overstatement.

I’m not alone in my view. Two days after that Sunday of infamy, author and radio host Dennis Prager stated, “I write the words ‘civil war’ with an ache in my heart. But we are in one.” About a week later, economist and political commentator Walter Williams implied the same when he wrote, “I believe we are nearing a point where there are enough irreconcilable differences between those Americans who want to control other Americans and those Americans who want to be left alone that separation is the only peaceable alternative.” Conservative author David Horowitz was way ahead of the curve when he said in 1996, “The Left is permanently at war with America.”

As for my own analysis, I begin by defining war this way: When two or more groups reach a point where they’re unable to resolve their disagreements, a “state of war” exists. This is the political state of affairs in which we now find ourselves. It’s been an ongoing conflict based on a fundamental difference in values. On one side you have those who favor a large proactive government that has the power to arbitrate the affairs of its citizens. On the other side you have those who believe the American citizen should arbitrate his own affairs with little or no government interference.

That this is a non-violent war—a sort of “cold war,” so to speak—is our only consolation. Further debate will not resolve it. Our irreconcilable differences have given us gridlock and partisan politics, but no end to the conflict. That’s unlikely to change.

How we managed to get to this point of strong-armed government excess is no longer relevant. Where we go from here must be our new focus. How we choose to fight this battle should be our paramount consideration. Beyond that, we must assess the current situation in the context of this New American Civil War in which we are now faced.

Mel Brooks once said that he found that the best way to deal with evil is to laugh at it. In light of the passing of the Health Care Reform Act–the largest government takeover of the private sector in U.S. history, we could sure use a laugh right now. So with apologies to the great Mel Brooks, I give you my response to this modern American disaster.

(Sung to the tune of “Springtime for Hitler”)

Harry Reid was having trouble
What a sad, sad story
So then Nancy Pelosi changed the rules
And rigged the voting
The public was aghast
The health care bill that passed
Was something no one wanted
But now the die is cast

And now it’s Springtime for health care and tyranny
(doot-da do-doot)
Obama is happy and gay
Congress now runs the show, their plans are laid
Look out, they’re sticking you with
Cap and trade!

Springtime for health care and tyranny
(doot-da do-doot)
Freedom and liberty, no more
Springtime for health care and tyranny
Look out, Congress
Now you’re history

It seems these days that everyone is demanding an apology for something. You can’t open your mouth without offending someone somewhere. But if you mean what you say to begin with, there’s no reason to apologize, is there?. That works the other other way too. If someone insults you, why demand an apology when you know they meant it?

Although this video has a strictly historical perspective, I couldn’t help but see the parallels to today’s liberal elites–those overly-sensitive politically correct sob sisters on the Left. It’s a righteous video.

All we know is something happened in the dark of night under the cloak of secrecy. What exactly it is, they won’t tell us. But Harry Reid has assured Americans that whatever it is, we’re going to like it. I think that’s what Mark Twain had in mind when he said, “If you don’t get what you like, you have to like what you get.”

So what are we talking about here? Incredible as it may seem, not even Harry Reid knows for sure. But he insists that whatever it is, it won’t cost much. With a sales pitch like that, it’s no wonder that so many people are concerned about what we might get stuck with in the end. And I do mean, in the end.

No one in their right mind would buy a car the way Congress is trying to sell their health care legislation. It would be like buying an automobile sight unseen, not knowing the model, the year, or the price tag. And if you don’t like those terms, tough luck; you have to buy one anyway. And by the way, even though you’re going to love driving it, there’s no warranty.

I don’t think I have adequate words to describe our current administration’s approach to health care. Phrases like “Feeble-minded,” “insanely warped,” “autocratic power grab”—all words that fall a bit short of the reality of this tyrannical lunacy. And the lunacy may have only just begun.

Now that the House and the Senate have each approved their own version of health care reform, Congress has to come to an agreement as to what bill they’re going to submit to the President to sign. Whichever version prevails, or even if it becomes a hybrid of the two, the final result will be a little like being given a mysterious venereal disease. Even if you don’t know what you have, you know you’ve been screwed.

If you’ve got money, the government will find you no matter where you go. Last week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed the idea of a global tax on stock trades and other financial transactions. It’s not enough that American taxpayers have to deal with the IRS. In order for this new plan to work, all major financial centers – Asia, the EU, U.S., and U.K. – would all have to pass a similar transaction tax to avoid disadvantaging one country’s stock exchange. In effect, a global tax bureaucracy. I doubt they surveyed any investors on this.

The idea came about from the financial transactions tax (HR4191) currently before Congress which Pelosi believes would need to have global jurisdiction in order to keep U.S. investors from taking their business overseas and out of taxable reach. This is the absurd game that our government plays: We figure out ways to circumvent the arbitrary dictates of an out of control bureaucracy, and they come up with new laws and regulations in an effort to foil our ingenuity.

Meanwhile, the Democrats continue to look for new ways to fleece taxpaying wage earners whose only crime is trying to make a buck. The real crime is being perpetrated by an administration obsessed with controlling its citizens means of income. And if Pelosi has her way, we’ll be seeing government interference on a worldwide scale. It’s a crime scene only a tyrant could love.

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One thing you can say about politicians: Their tax policies are simple and easy to understand. That’s because it’s always the same two step program.

1) Find out where the money is.
2) Figure out a way to take it.

It’s a tried and true method that I suppose goes back to Medieval days when the Sheriff of Nottingham was earning a living shaking down Sherwood Forest citizens. It seems little has changed since.

The most recent scheme of government sponsored thievery comes from California, and from all accounts it is, if nothing else, inventive. To help close yet another gaping budget deficit, Sacramento lawmakers have authorized a 10% increase in the amount of taxes withheld from worker paychecks starting November 1 and through 2010.

Now here comes the wacky part. Lawmakers say this isn’t a tax increase. It’s more like a compulsory interest-free loan from taxpayers to the state. The government is obliged to return this overpaid money next spring when workers get their tax refunds. It would be like Eddie the Leg Breaker coming to your door and demanding that you fund his loan shark racket. Which raises a question: How do we collect on our loans next year? I’m unclear on the procedure, but I hear that Lead Pipe Lombardi is looking for work.

There’s been some rumbling in the blogosphere since President Obama’s announcement yesterday that the outbreak of swine flu has been declared a national emergency. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius now has authority to bypass federal rules if necessary in order to meet increased demand for swine flu treatment and care.

To those suspicious of all things government, this is sending up a few red flags. Will there be forced quarantines? Does this allow FEMA to become part of our health care system? And just on general principle, is it ever a good idea when unelected federal officials are given more power to do much of anything, even something as apparently benign as treating the sick?

Maybe I’ve gotten my tinfoil hat fixed on too tight, but I think I know leftists, and I think I know my way around Mr. Obama’s ideological neighborhood. While this particular national emergency is hardly the second coming of Fidel Castro, it could be a preview of things to come—a dry run of sorts that might give Obama a template by which to implement arbitrary extra-constitutional laws in the future.

We’ll see. I once heard that when in doubt, trust your paranoia. It’s probably not good advice in most cases, but it could be the perfect mindset for keeping tabs on a government that’s already out of control.

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Hey everybody, the $787 billion economic recovery package is indeed stimulating growth–in the federal government. Never mind that the federal government is the nation’s largest employer. And for the moment let’s ignore the fact that this amounts to over 1.8 million employees. It’s being reported today that various federal agencies have increased their ranks by more than 25,000 since December 2008. If you’re a statist that loves the soft tyranny of American big government, this must be good news. For those of us who enjoy old fashioned American liberty, it’s an out of control abomination.

I hope I’m just being paranoid, but I’m getting the feeling that there are people out there who believe that everyone should be working for the govenment; people who have no problem with the idea of our nation turning into one big public sector. Hey, easier to control. And easier to influence too. When your paycheck comes from Uncle Sam, and he has the power to hire and fire you, it just might sway your vote. The government becomes your number one special interest.

The private sector, on the other hand, is a vast collection of diverse special interests that can be cumbersome to monitor and difficult to predict. Free-market private enterprise is complex. It’s what makes totalitarian systems so attractive to some–it’s so simple, clean, and trouble free. Trouble free until you realize that you’ve become a faceless government drone serving the state at its behest and pleasure.

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