Pasadena Politics

I recently read an article from the Economist that mentioned Homeschooling.   As a Home-schooling parent, I obviously found the article of interest.   It assumed that conservatives will pull their kids from school to teach them at home because of Obama’s liberalism.   While it is certainly true that some will, to say that it is simply conservatives and people who are religious who home-school does not represent the actuality: many people don’t think public schools do the job their tax dollars are put towards.

Most people who have looked at home-schooling have already started.   For others, the financial aspect will be prohibitive.   Either they are single parents who have little choice but to have their children in a school apart from home, or they are so financially bound to working that they cannot (or think they cannot) afford to home-school.  Secondly, it asserts that active parents would have as equal impact on their children in home or non-home-schooled environments.   There is certainly much to be said for being involved at one’s child’s school,  but it is not equal to the direct one on one attention a Home-schooler  receives.   Think about the Education establishment’s and Teacher’s Unions complaints (legitimate ones at that) that bigger class sizes deprive students of a teacher’s attention.   Certainly what is good for the Gander is good for the Goose?
Many parents no longer trust the Public School system because many see a great encroachment on their rights as parents when a school can medicate a child without parental permission or decide to take or teach them to special  lessons without prior notification.   Many parents also would prefer to have their children among like minded individuals (such as themselves) than those would influence them to behave contrary to their morals and beliefs.

Anyways, I thought the article was interesting, but not on target.  Well, after today’s news, I rethink that thought.   People are more likely to consider home schooling, and it won’t just be religious or conservatives parents.   See it here.

How about this song:

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

And then this song:

Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say “hooray!”

Hooray, Mr. President! You’re number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!

Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans
To make this country’s economy number one again!

Hooray Mr. President, we’re really proud of you!
And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!

So continue —- Mr. President we know you’ll do the trick
So here’s a hearty hip-hooray —-

Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!

Well, at least they are being taught about the Bill of Rights and the Constitution which sets our Nation apart from so many others?  I hope?

You gotta love this exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it’s still a tax increase.

OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase.

People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy…

OBAMA: No, but — but, George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase. Any…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Here’s the…

OBAMA: What — what — if I — if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say well, that’s not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don’t want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then…

STEPHANOPOULOS: I — I don’t think I’m making it up. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: Tax — “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”

OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but…

OBAMA: …what you’re saying is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.

You can watch the exchange here.

Sure, everybody in California, for instance, is required to have Auto Insurance.  However, California does not issue auto insurance.  If it did, there would be a significant conflict of interest because it not only would have the regulatory power over auto insurance, but it can subsidize itself and drive competitors out of the market.   Where Government is concerned, it competes unfairly as it does not have to make a profit while individuals and corporations must in order to sustain themselves.

The exchange is Orwellian because Obama rejects the common and accepted definition for one he finds convenient to his own agenda.

Very much like O’Brien as he tortures Winston Smith: “Two plus two equals five.”   One should ask about the direction our elected leadership is taking us; is the next to follow:  “Always, Winston, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

Jimmy Carter,  born in the early part of 1900,  has a peculiar perspective.   He lived during the Jim Crow era.  He lived through the the Civil Rights era.  He lived to be President for one term and he continues to make interesting comments following that term.   So he comes on national TV and in essence states that the Tea Parties and protest to Health Care Reform were rooted in racism.   Basically: protest to Obama contains racism.
Forget the arguments for or against Health Care Reform, Fairness Doctrine revival, Internet Control Emergency Powers, Bail Outs, Buy Outs, and further expansion of Government.   No, there is no pro-argument to support these expansions than saying your opponents are racist.

How nice.  How deep.  How truly knowledgeable that statement is.  Not really.

Carter is projecting himself on all of America.

A good portion of the American Populace today were raised in integrated communities.  Their parents may not have liked it, but in the end, they grew up with people not of their own ethnic background (sorry, there is only human race as far as I am concerned).  They did not grow up being told that the color of ones skin made them of more or less value.   Actually, they were, they were told white people were bad and everyone else was oppressed by the white people and that the color of your skin entitled you to privileges if you were not white because of what some white people you never knew or were related to did to non-white people.   Ok… there is a lot of the racism of White guilt.

Of course, one has to ask: what is racism?   Is racism the observation of one’s skin tone?  One’s nose, hair, or other physical features?  If so, is it possible for a blind and deaf person to be racist?  Or is racism an observation about someone and deciding that because of that observation they are inferior?

Don’t hire him, he is black.
Don’t hire her, she is female.
Don’t fire him, he is latino.
Don’t give him a raise, he has red hair.

That, plainly, is racism.   Is it?   If a black man said: don’t hire him, he is black, is it in the same caliber as if a white man said it? Can a person be racist against their own “race”?

How about this:

Don’t hire him, he didn’t go to Yale.
Don’t hire her, her family is poor.
Don’t fire him, he’s in the same club.
Don’t give him a raise, he is Catholic.

That is not racism.  But it stems from the same source as racism: elitism.    Racism is simply a sub-category of elitism.   I can’t think of many people who are happy about Elitism, let alone racism.   People don’t like being told they were not hired because they went to one school and not another.   The elitism of Education.  People don’t like being told that they were fired because of the color of their skin.    The elitism of ethnicity.

So why Carter?  Why bring up the elitism of ethnicity?

Well, if you have been paying attention to the pro-health care arguments they are often prefaced by ad homonym attacks such as stating the protesters are using Nazi symbols, or are white, or have threatening signs.    Forget the context.  Forget the argument.   It is all about slandering people with the most divisive slur possible: the elitism of ethnicity.    For months the pro-change-your-relationship-with-government supporters have been trying to shift the argument to one about elitism (racism).   Joe Wilson makes his true statement that Obama is Lying and so another man of the South is brought out of the dusty cupboard to comment on it with authority.   Well, regardless of what anyone says, if the argument is not about the actual substance of the Bills or Legislation, then the argument is merely a distraction.

So… why the Thought Police comment in the title?

Hate Speech.   Hate Crimes.  All revolve around assuming an act was committed because of an emotional thought.   A whole new way to try someone with criminal charges and not need to offer any other proof than the difference in their appearance or thinking.   That is un-American.   The very fact someone committed a crime against another is not because they love that person.    So adding an extra layer of Hate is redundant and a path to more lessening of Constitutional rights if left unchecked and a less scrupulous administration comes into power.

Forget what you say, that is protected speech.  It’s what you think they will come after.

The President gave a nice speech tonight.   It was the normal pattern he used during the campaign and for the inauguration: Sound Conservative without promising to be one; sound Constitutional without meaning it.   Frankly, you take every word he said, package it up and toss it in a drawer because nothing he said means anything until there is an actual Bill to read.
Certainly we will hear and read plenty of clips from tonight’s speech, but it is necessary to pay them any heed other than to compare them to the text of the Bill itself and see with clarity the great expansive desire he and others in power have to gain and retain power beyond the bounds of the Constitution.
He is certainly not the only President and Congress to seek more power beyond the Constitution.   But this act will seal the deal.   Once Government so closely regulates and through that regulation controls your health (come now, if a Government plan is so affordable, why should anyone chose any other insurance?   Oh, wait, we already have government insurance plans as it is: Medicare and Medicaid – see how well they are managed) you will find yourself more and more dependent on Government’s largess.

- – -

A while back I wrote about Obama and wondered if he supports freedom.   Well, given the pressure Washington has been putting on Honduras to take Zelaya back and thus violate it’s own Constitution; given his odd support for a bill which would place government into more direct control of the lives of it’s citizens; given his eagerness to be able to ‘turn off the Net in an “Emergency”‘; given his increasing use of “Czars” who are no where permitted by the Constitution; given the overall makeup of those he chooses to lead with him; it does indeed appear that the President is not a friend of Freedom nor the Constitution.

At least, not a friend of Freedom as the framers of the Constitution viewed it.

He is a friend to totalitarian leaders.

He sees the government’s role in the daily life of Americans as an urgent need.

He does not think Americans as individuals capable of managing their own affairs.

He sees himself among an enlightened elite who know best how you should live.

He likes power but not the responsibility (voting “present” so very often and making grand but very vague demands).

The Citizens need to say clearly and loudly that the Constitution of Negative rights is what they want from Obama.   The Negative rights which limit government and it’s role in society.  The Negative rights of government which mean positive rights for the citizens of this country to go about their daily lives unmolested and free from busy bodies and do-gooders who would intrude thinking that they knew better how the citizen should live than the citizen living their own life.