Pasadena Politics

Obama says he won’t prosecute CIA personnel responsible for Enhanced Interrogation of Terrorists!

Obama says he might prosecute lawyers who said it was OK!

It is obvious that he did not change his mind.  It he had, the CIA personnel would have been mentioned.   However, what we see is a consistency in his character: hamstringing our ability to respond to external enemies.   It does not matter if the action itself took place.  What matters is if the potential for it to happen again would engender fear of political persecution – which is what the current threat of prosecution amounts too.

Not creep as in some shady character but creep as in encroching, sneaking, preparing to jump on you kind of creep.    This last year, we had “revenue problems” in California.  Mind you, the issue was really a spending problem, but Legislatures cannot call it a spending problem when they count on that spending to keep the interests that spend money on them to stay in office happy.   After all, what a better way to show you care about a ‘group’ – especially a ‘disenfranchised group’ than by spending other people’s money on them?    No leading by example, just a little Robin Hood action.

Of course, populism, collectivism, and the preying upon the emotional jealousies of the poor may appear to be a great way to get elected, but in the end it only produces oligarcy, resentment, civil strife, bloated government, and more and more poor.    Regan’s Trickle Down Economics – derided by Bush Sr. as Voodoo Economics, is still preferable to anything Liberals/Progressives can devise.    After all, it takes money to make money and who better to invest their wealth than those who had the wisdom and intelligence to create it to begin with?    It may seem nice to redistribute wealth through taxation but such redistributions do to generate income for their target audience.    The net effect is the stagnation of the generation of wealth which would have otherwise gone to improving the lives of those now receiving government aide or hand-outs.

Indeed, government redistribution of wealth is the surest form of crippling one’s economy and society.

Anyways, back on track:

The new form of Tax creep appears to be the internet.  With States like California who seem to think the problem is a revenue problem rather than their lavish spending on anything but essentials is it no small wonder Congress, who is overseeing a blooming increase in government spending to rival the History and Future of the USA, is eying the taxation of the Internet?   Oh, it will certainly start small.   But we all know how government, once the foot is in the door, invites itself in for dinner, your checkbook, bed and then breakfast before casting you from your own home under the rubric that you have more than someone else and should feel guilty over it.

If you don’t want to increase government’s impact on your life, now might be a good time to take a stand against increasing taxation – if you have not started already.  Talk to your Representatives – State and Federal.   Let them know you are opposed to further increases in government’s increasing it’s purse even as your’s grows smaller or stretches thinner.

There are two dominant though process that are at play in America: Collectivism and Individualism.

Under the collectivist flag we have those who see problems and challenges in the world and determine that the best way to address those problems is not a recognition of individual rights, but a command over individuals by the State.   They see it better to lower everyone’s standards so as to be ‘fair’ than to be fair to all by allowing opportunity to be seized upon by any willing to take it.   Because they are “educated” they believe they know how to live better than the “uneducated”.  In some cases, they might, but it represents a profound arrogance and steps on the Freedoms endowed by our Creator – of whom they fervently disbelieve.   They excuse their control and revision of the Constitution by citing extreme social outliers as being the ‘norm’.  Such as guns being why some people kill other people.

They do not need to conspire as they live by an ideology that sees its success as viral.   So the spread of their ideology begins with the education of the youth: impressing it on young malleable minds while slandering or ignoring counter ideas.

Under the Individualist flag we have those who see problems and challenges in the world and determine that the best way to address them is to enable those effected to overcome their obstacles.   Not by endlessly holding their hand, but to hold it just long enough for them to regain their footing.   They see the State as an obstacle to freedom and success but necessary to protect and defend the rights of those living under it.  In fact, they view government as something they tolerate and direct rather than the reverse.   They see education as important so that people can make the best decisions about their own lives.   They view principles as being foundational; something changes in weather cannot alter.   They view outliers as that: outside the norm and see it as just one more reason to support individual freedoms.

They tolerate far more and for far longer than the collectivist and while the collectivist would stamp out their voice, they would not deny the right of the collectivist to speak.   Knowledge is power and with access to knowledge, people more often chose freedom over enslavement.

That said: is it any wonder that the media portrays those who love Freedom and Limited Government as hateful racists and lunatics?   Is it any wonder that they do not show both sides of the argument clearly but instead shine a favorably filtered light on news they agree with while demonizing anything they disagree with?

“Words must mean something.”

Words, Mr. President, ALWAYS mean something.  The question is this: what do you plan to do about those words? Or are they just another posturing; campaigning; hot air that you have doused us with before? Where is your pledge to go back to the Founding Documents per your inauguration speech?   Or was that simply more selling of yourself at the lowest common denominator?    I am certain, as I was from the first time I heard you speak, that your words were no more than puffery and from one who thinks that showing others compassion is what you make other people do and not perform yourself.

How people voted for this man in clear conscience, I do not understand.   Is it simply they have no grasp of Rhetoric or Logic?   That they are unable (perhaps unwilling?) to put his words to the test of consistency and match them to his prior actions? Why did no one ask: who’s hope?  What form of change? His public appearances were carefully gauged to be vague and optimistic. Yet in practice he has been anything but vague and optimistic decrying the USA and the economy one day then saying how good it was another depending on how it would help his agenda.

So here he says words, speaks and is heard but he is no Roosevelt. Definitely no Teddy Roosevelt who famously said: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Indeed, what nation in it’s right mind would forgo reason and leave itself defenseless?  Obama speaks loudly but would rather carry an olive branch than a stick.   Lord help us if we are attacked on his watch. Considering his subservient attitude to the Saudi King, it would be a miracle if he did anything but say: “we deserved this, let them take their pound of flesh.”

Obama really needs to take a few Toastmaster’s courses. He relies to much on canned speeches and failing teleprompters.