Confession: We have a liberal troll who, when I don’t get a post up on Monday, sends me needling emails about what losers we all are for even attempting this. If nothing else, his email serves as a good reminder that I need to post. But this week I did not read. I got busy at the SPN Conference, then came home sick. Luckily, Warrior is always diligent and we can use his. Besides, this is a group effort. Shame on y’all for letting a left-wing troll who also emails praise for Hitler beat you guys to harassing me. In any event, read Chapter 5 for Monday. — Erick

“Franklin Roosevelt’s Fascist New Deal”

Favorite Chapter Quote, “He [FDR] spoke in generalities that everyone found agreeable at first and meaningless upon reflection.” pg 129

In Chapter 4, Goldberg goes a long way toward establishing the idea that, in the teens, twenties and thirties of the last century, Fascism was on the ascendency. And one of it’s most hearty acolytes was FDR. “The notion that FDR harbored fascist tendencies is vastly more controversial today than it was in the 1930’s, primarily because fascism has come to mean Nazism and Nazism means simply evil.” Pg 123 The fascist (Hitlerite) nature of New Deal fiscal policy was actually invoked as a point in its’ favor at the time.

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Lib Fascism Chapt 3

“Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of Liberal Fascism”

Favorite chapter quote (from pg 88): “Indeed, the ink from Wilson’s pen regularly exudes the odor of what we today call the living Constitution.”

When discussing the threat of any totalitarian threat coming to America, someone inevitably cries, “It can’t happen here.” Yet, according to Goldberg, it already has. It came in the form of one socially isolated academic who was prone to homesickness: Woodrow Wilson. If one will recall from chapter two, totalitarianism was understood as a good thing in the early twentieth century, a time when more benevolent and naive connotations attached to the term. The total state as protector and friend, as father, mother, teacher and preacher. All that was required was that one sublimate his individualism to the “good of the state.” And thus is provided the sub-text for chapter three, namely, individualism bad, proletariat conformity good.

I recall the time in the mid-seventies when I realized the true and horrible implications of leftist chants such as “everything is political” and “the personal is political.” It meant exactly what it said and what it ended up being, which is the stifled, humorless, hostile America in which we now live. Use cows as an example of global warming offenders? You guessed it, somehow, somewhere, the National Union of Cow Piety (NUCP) National Defense League (NDL) comes out of the woodwork shouting “insensitive” and waving a subpoena. Like a certain kind music or style of clothes? Don’t care for obscenity laced “entertainment”? It is taken as a political statement and we haven’t even begun to talk politics yet. God forbid you should have an opinion on abortion.

Goldberg states flatly that “Woodrow Wilson was the twentieth century’s first fascist dictator” (Pg 80) and then spends the next 40 pages of closely reasoned and heavily documented writing to prove it. Goldberg reviews Wilson’s early life, how he learned to love power, hate franchising blacks and become another voice in the chorus of Jane Addams and Walter Rauschenbusch “who believed that collectivism was the new ‘freedom.’” (pg 87)

Goldberg goes on to posit T. Roosevelt and Wilson as two dogs fighting over the same bone, i.e. Teddy the Nationalist Progressive and Woodrow the socialist academic. Goldberg points out that Progressivism and Fascism were both international movements and shared the same “intellectual wellsprings.” (Pg 93) Some of the leading lights were, in no particular order, Nietzsche, Bismark, Richard Ely, Herbert Croly and William James, to name a few. (Pgs 94-95) Many prominent founders of modern liberalism studied in Germany and became enamored of the Prussian model of using militarism as a way of organizing and controlling the citizenry.

Speaking of Herbert Croly, he was a huge influence on T. Roosevelt and Wilson and founder of the leftist New Republic. His most important book, The Promise of American Life, according to Goldberg, is a virtual litany of fascist principles, e.g. organizing society along martial lines, use of the Sorelian myth, nationalism, politics as religion, hostility to the indvidual - it’s all there. (Pg 98) And if politics was the new religion, science was the new scripture. (Pg 100)

After explaining that the various manifestations of fascism and progressivism, and indeed, differences between the two, were mainly due to pan-Atlantic and inter-nation-state cultural appurtenances, (pg 99) he goes on to describe the despicable, but thoroughly modern liberal habit of shilling and lying for murderous Marxist regimes. Among the early tribe of useful American idiots were John Reed and E. A. Ross who worked ceaselessly to minimize the Red Terror. (Pg 101) More cheerleaders for the Bolsheviks were economists Rexford Guy Tugwell and Paul Douglas, educationists Lillian Wald and John Dewey and labor leaders Sidney Hillman and John L. Lewis. W.E.B. DuBois was enraptured, declaring at one point, “I am a Bolshevik.” DuBois, who had also studied the Prussian paradigm in Germany, was an anti-Semite at the time, his magazines featuring a swastika on their covers in 1924, although he later renounced Nazi anti-Semitism. (Pg 103)

So we see that Wilson was a Nietzschean, Hegelian, Jamesian Darwinist. If those intellectual currents sound familiar, they should. They are almost identical to those of one A. Hitler. (Pg104) And Goldberg is quick to explain that the beginning of WWI stimulated the American economy and not otherwise, lest liberals start to boast of the “good sense” of the progressive approach. (Pg 105) And though the war had no redeeming U.S. interests to recommend it, as Wilson himself altruistically exclaimed, it was, in more modern parlance, the crisis that was “too good to waste.” (Pg 105) John Dewey had put it succinctly when he wrote of the “social possibilities of war.” (Pg 106)

Going on, Goldberg spends several pages chronicling Wilson’s extra-Constitutional, morally questionable and downright unlawful abuses of civil rights. This was not an attempt to feret out true saboteurs or terrorists, this was strictly a way to crush the opposition and order society a la Otto von Bismark. Wilson then began “the first truly Orwellian propaganda efforts in Western history.” (Pg 109) The usual Hollywood suspects lined up to do his bidding, including artists, musicians, comedians, etc., not to mention an array of leftist intellectuals and journalists, such as George Creel, who headed the infamous Committee on Public Information. And the straight-faced usage of the “Official Euphemism” was born - think Overseas Contingency Operations. Explaining the first military draft since the Civil War, Wilson lectured, “It is in no sense a conscription of the unwilling: it is, rather, selection from a nation which has volunteered in mass.” (Pg 109) (Translation: “O.K., Koblowski, you and Jurgiliwitz just volunteered for a dangerous assignment.” “Er, O.K. First Sergeant.”)

Another socialist agitator and Wilson appointee, Arthur Bullard, gave full voice to the ends justifies the means theme of the day, “Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms…The force of an idea lies in its’ inspirational value. It matters very little if it’s true or false.” (Pg 111) This reeking mendacity is still fresh on the left today. Dan Rather’s doctored document indicting Bush II as a military shirker was the news story that was “too good to check.” Remember? And even more recently, leftists made up quotes to disparage Rush Limbaugh in a successful effort to prevent him from exercising his rights as an American citizen. (And then when Rush lampooned them by doing the same in reverse to them, they howled like a troop of scalded monkees.)

“A few Hollywood writers who’d supported Stalin and then lied about it” were blackballed under the oft-castigated horror of McCarthyism, but he was a piker compared to Wilson. (Pg 113) He created another monster called The American Protective League, and using the Espionage and Sedition Acts of ‘17 and ‘18, respectively, created an atmosphere in which even the most off-handed criticism of his gubmint resulted in beatings, jailings and even murder. (Pg 116) Even today, most people still recall the Palmer raids (that is, people who studies history prior to 1975 or so, i.e. before it became politicized or non-existent.) It is estimated that approximately 175,000 Americans were arrested during Wilson’s presidency for being insufficiently devoted to the cause. (Pg 117)

And as liberal academic historians airbrush the past, such shenanigans as these are always put down as failures of America in general - no particular ideology is discussed. Whereas, any alleged “conservative” failure is attributed directly and unequivocally to them and is considered proof positive that any future power in the hands of conservatives will also result in disaster res ipsa loquitur. Such is the power of revisionist history that only Mussolini’s support for the war made him “right wing” by the lights of communist propagandists, while no other pro-war socialists of the time were so disparaged, and yet even now fascists are purportedly “right-wing” in the modern leftist liberal spectrum of hateful ideologies. (Pg 118)

Squaring the circle of disparate wealth, George Creel expatiated the Progressives’ goal of creating a society in which there existed “…no dividing line between rich and poor,” almost an exact projection of Hitler’s rhetoric a few years later. (And even today, how many times have we heard some millionaire starlet whine about the supposed gap between rich and poor?) “The Wilsonian-Crolyite progressive conception of the individual’s role in society” was to serve the state irrespective of whether the realization of such utopian dreams “would have to come at the price of personal liberty.” (Pg 120) And on the basis of most modern criteria used to fix characters on the gamut of political beliefs, e.g. social base, social policy, economics, demographics – “Adolph Hitler was indisputably to Wilson’s left.” (Pg 120) So your liberal friends will be surprised to learn that one of their most famous intellectual progenitors was a fascist, as were many, many of their others.

Next week: Chapter Four: “Franklin Roosevelt’s Fascist New Deal”

“Adolph Hitler: Man of the Left”

Favorite Chapter Quote: ”Meanwhile, the contention that industrialists and other fat cats were pulling Hitler’s strings from behind the scenes has also been banished to the province of aging Marxists, nostalgic for paradigms lost.”  Pg 58

[Favorite Chapter Quote from Chapter One, “Mussolini: The Father of Fascism”:  Speaking of where Mussolini might land in 1904 after being labeled an “enemy of society” by the Swiss (no mean feat in itself), Goldberg writes, “At one point he considered whether he should work in Madagascar, take a job at a socialist newspaper in New York, or join other socialist exiles in the leftist haven of Vermont (which fills much the same function today).”  Pg 34]

I truly didn’t plan to make these reviews any kind of anti-Obama screed, but the book’s text practically screams for it.  For instance, while discussing the disagreement among scholars about whether Nazism was fascism with a capital F, or was a form of it at all, Goldberg mentions that while Hitler only referenced it twice in Mein Kampf, he admired (and borrowed) its’ most sellable piece.  Quoting from pg 533 of the Manheim translation, “And it was only the idea [any idea which is new and inspirational] that enabled Fascism triumphantly to subject a whole nation to a process of complete renovation.”  Sound familiar?  That’s right, on October 30^th, 2008 during a speech at the University of Missouri, BHO delivered the following sentiment, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”  And this little discussion is on page 53, the chapter’s FIRST page.

Goldberg goes on to describe Nazi ideology, not as a “program or platform,” (pg 55) but as one which, “…most often resembled a religious crusade wearing the mask of a political ideology.”  mmm mmm mmm  And he further remarks that the one message Hitler did take away from Italian Fascism is that of “the idea” as mentioned above.  The inherent meaning or even truth of “the idea” is of secondary importance.  Rather, its’ ability to facilitate certain actions or legitimize various movements – in short, to “arouse the masses” is what recommends it.  Indeed, Hitler was a megalomaniacal opportunist, so any apparently consistent theme in his “ideology”, outside of blind racial hatred, was evanescent at best. 

The power of symbols is quite closely studied in contemporary schools of social work (and also of sociology, I would imagine) due to the political nature of such schools and their importance in consolidating power for the left.  Liberals’ love of euphemisms and their hyper-vigilant suspicion of “code words” are quite suggestive of how they view “the idea.”  It may also explain the current administration’s fixation with Fox news network.  In any case, although he had none of his own, Hitler’s ability to triangulate, adopt, blend and peddle various ideologies depending on the audience (paraphrase of pg 56) amplifies the significance of symbol over substance and demonstrates how easily masses can be appeased if they have faith in some emotionally redeeming, quasi-religious “idea,” social justice for instance.

The creation of a powerful caricature for political reasons is central to why many people today think Hitler was a right-wing character and/or that his movement was somehow conservative.  After the “Night of the Long Knives” (not to mention Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of Russia) the Reds had every reason in the world to distance themselves from him.  Says Goldberg, “For decades the left has cherry-picked the facts to form a caricature of what the Third Reich was about….the desired effect was to cast Nazism as the polar opposite of Communism.”  More specifically, “…the roles of industrialists and conservatives was grossly exaggerated, while the very large and substantial leftist and socialist aspects of Nazism were shrunk to the status of trivia, the obsession of cranks and Hitler apologists.” (pg 57)

William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” goes a long way in perpetuating the myth of Nazi “right-wing-ism” by conveniently positing that Hitler “destroyed the Left” i.e. supposedly leaving “the Right” in place and unaltered.  However, as Goldberg points out, the Nazis did not so much “destroy the Left” as “replace the Left,” just as the SDS and Ramparts crowd became the “New Left” when the truth of Stalin’s purges finally came out.  True, the “Left,” as it was understood at that time, WAS destroyed, but only because of a determined attempt by its’ fresher acolytes to distance themselves from it and keep the quaint ideas of socialism alive and well in America. 

After decades of leftist propaganda regarding Nazi capitalists, how easy it is to forget that socialism is supposed to be a movement of the proletariat, i.e. the common man, the working poor, the unemployed – the underprivileged, as it were.  And surprise, large swaths of the Nazi base were from this very group of downtrodden and lower classes.  In addition, the actual German capitalists of the day despised Hitler and initially thought they could simply use him for their own purposes.  Of course, when the real terror of the Third Reich began, everyone who was not a party member (and many who were) found that it was quite dangerous to make trouble and more than expedient to become compliant with and even develop a taste for the soupe du jour, so to speak.  Organically however, as Goldberg puts it, “Nazism and Fascism were both popular movements with support from every stratum of society.” (pg 58)  

My guess is Hitler simply found it easier to let Krupp make weapons and Daimler-Benz make motors.  This was and is the main practical difference between National Socialism and sho’ ‘nuff communism.  The reds nationalized the means of production and promptly made a mess of it (except during the war, when normal economic exigencies were suspended.)  Otherwise, we are simply talking about two or three different chapters of the same fascist club.  Goldberg addresses the fantasy that corporations are “inherently right-wing” in a later chapter on economics.

So Hitler was a revolutionary and a reactionary.  Never heard him described as a revolutionary before?  Neither have I.  Nor are you likely to in the popular media or the American academy.  Leftists have assiduously cleansed history of any connection he might have had to revolution since they believe it is always positive, “…the inevitable forward motion of the Hegelian wheel of history.” (Pg 59)  Hitler may not have had any allegiance to a set ideology (other than racial hatred), but he exploited anti-capitalist rhetoric which was undoubtedly believed by the rank and file.  Conservatism by almost any definition is surely the antithesis of revolution.  It’s hard to see how Hitler’s revolutionary tendencies have been hidden for so long.  The man titled his signature ideological/political screed “My Struggle” for crying out loud.

“Reactionary” is another one of those dusty Marxist terms which gets thrown around a lot by people like Airhead America’s Janeane Garofalo who use the term to mean, basically, “anyone who disagrees with me.”  In the patois of early twentieth century Marxists and progressives however, it described folks who wished to return to God, king and country as ideals - certainly not goals of the Third Reich.  Yet, insofar as Hitler wanted to throw off millennia of Judeo-Christian tradition and return to paganism, Wotan and Valhalla, he certainly earns the moniker.        

In any event, by no stretch of the imagination can Hitler be described as a conservative.  Regardless of the shifting locations of “right” or “left” in the modern or historical lexicon of socio-political taxonomy, Monsieur Adolph wanted to preserve nothing, saving maybe the pipe dream of racial purity as personified by an Aryan Superman.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but the popular depiction of a mid-twentieth-century ideology of genocide as “right-wing” has been the plaything of socialist and progressive propagandists for decades now.  Therefore, it is an important point to dispute, especially given the virulence of Hollywood’s, Democrats’ and academicians’ endless attempts to paint conservatives, Republicans and the political right as somehow connected to Nazism.  Again, Goldberg should have the last word: “Certainly, to suggest that Hitler was a conservative in any sense related to American conservatism is lunacy.” (pg 61)

Of course, many other strains of “reasoning” are used to equate Nazism with contemporary right-wing politics.  For instance, the National Socialists’ racism, supposed fondness for capitalism and opprobrium of Bolshevism are all used as purported “evidence” that they could accurately be described as conservatives or even garden variety, lower case f fascists.  Such pitiful sallies fall apart with even a cursory look.

As far as racism, who practices identity politics today based on race and ethnicity?  Which professional association of national social workers for many years opposed (and may still oppose) inter-racial adoption based on the principal that black babies would otherwise lose their cultural (read racial) “authenticity”?  (And thereby depriving them of loving homes, which makes me so mad I can’t see straight.)  And historically, whereas Hitler is practically defined by his hatred of the Jews, Mussolini, “The Father of Fascism” remember, thought of racial politics as a mere distraction and basically silly.  He could have cared less about anyone’s race.  Indeed, Jews were protected by his troops far more often than not and persecuted less than by any group other than the Danes.  Actually, I’m understating the issue.  He despised the so called ubermenchen for their racist policies.  From pg 55, Mussolini penned, or at least approved of, an article in Gerachia, “Thirty centuries of history permit us to regard with supreme pity certain doctrines supported beyond the Alps by the descendants of people who did not know how to write, and could not hand down documents recording their own lives, at a time when Rome had Caesar, Virgil, and Augustus.”    

The fact of Hitler’s anti-Semitism has been thoroughly documented, yet his strong dislike of Christians is less so.  During his time in Vienna, when he discovered National Socialism and the need for Teutonic purity (or Germanic affirmative action at least), he spent late nights, “…writing plays about pagan Bavarians bravely fighting off invading Christian priests trying to impose foreign beliefs on Teutonic civilization.” (Pg 64)  And the feeling was mutual for the most part.  Reinhold Niebuhr strongly opposed the events occurring in Germany and in 1933 was one of the first Christian leaders in the U.S. to warn against the “cultural annihilation of the Jews” in an article for the Christian Century.  Martin Niemoller, the Lutheran pastor who gave us the famous poem, “They came for the Jews”, was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau from 1937 until the end of the war by Hitler personally, even after being released with a fine and time served by a “Special” court.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another German Lutheran pastor and staunch opponent of Nazism, was involved in a plot by members of the Abwehr to assassinate der Fuhrer in 1943.  He was subsequently imprisoned and later executed at Flossenburg one month before the war ended.  For the record, Hitler also disliked Slavs, conservatives, gypsies, intellectuals, homosexuals and Marxists – and in fact, including Christians, executed a total of approximately three million people from these groups.

Hitler also studied Marxism during his stay in Vienna.  He came to believe Marx was the force behind a Jewish plot, a vast Hebrew conspiracy, one might say.  And while serving (King Ludwig III) in WWI, his suspicion of Marxism became a vile hatred for actual communism.  German Reds took advantage of the chaos and starvation of German civilians by organizing strikes, calling for peace with the Soviets and pushing for the institution of socialism.  Hitler (and many others) saw this as treason by a corrupt government, i.e. the “November criminals.”  Wrote Hitler, “During those nights [recovering from war wounds] my hatred increased, hatred for those responsible for this dastardly crime.”  He of course conflated “capitalists, communists and cowards” (pg 67) as responsible and saw it all as the work of a thinly veiled cabal of Jewish interests.  So this assumed betrayal and not any kind of heavy ideological differences with socialist policies, explain Hitler’s antipathy towards the Bolsheviks. 

This corrupt mindset also drives a lot of his thinking about capitalism.  The Jews have historically been a popular scapegoat and were much more so after the first war, when pandemic economic malaise easily lent itself to such resentments.  As we’ll see later, after coming to power, he even went so far as closing down (or nationalizing) department stores (the Wal-Marts of their day) because of their Jewish connection and the assumed unfair advantage they had over more purely Aryan Mom and Pop enterprises (Tante Emma Laden).  Hitler was impressed with one speaker at a German Worker’s Party meeting, Gottfried Feder, whose rant was entitled, “How and by What Means Is Capitalism to Be Eliminated?” (pg 67)  Hitler saw the potential for turning such nonsense into a way of appealing to the Volk, who believed capitalists were exploiting them at every turn.  Feder never missed a chance to call Jews “parasites.” 

As we can see, National Socialism is an ideology based on deep-seated resentments and hatred.  It is founded on the idea that the state should work to ensure “social justice”.  (Does it really matter whether “justice” must be extracted from purportedly avaricious Joooos or presumably “greedy” and “racist” white crackers?)  Take a look at “The Nazi Party Platform” found in the Appendix on pg 410.  It reads like a wish list from the fevered imagination of George Clooney or some other moonbat of today: universal education, guaranteed employment, increased entitlements for the aged, the expropriation of land without compensation, the abolition of market-based lending (“interest slavery” – but I guess Hitler wouldn’t have instituted a “pay czar” to regulate bankers’ salaries, maybe a “pay fuhrer”), the expansion of health services, etc. — hardly the stuff of anyone in bed with capitalism.

Goldberg puts it succinctly, “What the Nazis pursued was a form of anticapitalist, antiliberal [anti-classically-liberal that is], and anti-conservative communitarianism encapsulated in the concept of Volksgemeinschaft, or ‘people’s community.’”  (pg 69)  And remember, Hitler was a nationalist, not a patriot, with the former interested in blood, soil, ethnicity, race, and Volk, while the latter is more concerned with the ideas, institutions and traditions of a country. (pg 62)  Hitler was not at all a patriot to the state of Germany as it then existed.  Yet Marx’s idea that “workingmen have no country” was anathema to Herr Schicklgruber.  However, he wanted them to have a “Fatherland” (soil) based on racial purity (blood and race) and which excluded Germany’s formerly (classically) liberal policies (institutions) regarding foreigners and traditional religions.  Recall that previous to the ‘30’s, Jews had flocked to Germany from all over Eastern Europe and Russia to escape persecution.  Germany, under “…the Bismarkian constitution of 1871 [which] brought to legal fruition the process of Jewish emancipation begun during the Prussian reform period early in the Century” (from Karl Schleunes’ “The Twisted Road to Auschwitz”), had allowed them to own businesses, engage in the “learned professions,” intermarry and so on – things which were forbidden in the lands of pure socialism.     

Goldberg spends the last few pages of the chapter divining Hitler’s real motives for disliking Bolshevism and piling on yet more evidence that “right wing” was simply applied when convenient to castigate those whose flavor of socialism diverged from acceptable party cant, kind of like Camille Paglia today being accused of “right-wing-ism” because she has departed from modern leftist orthodoxy on several issues.  For instance, on pg 71, Goldberg states, “Most of the Bolshevik revolutionaries Stalin executed were accused of being not conservatives or monarchists but rightists — that is, right wing socialists.  Any deviation from the Soviet line was automatic proof of rightism.  Ever since, we in the West have apishly mimicked the Soviet usage of such terms without questioning the propagandistic baggage attached.”

And in return, “What distinguished Nazism [from other types of socialism] was that it forthrightly included a worldview we now associate almost completely with the political left: identity politics.” (Pg 73) As previously mentioned, Hitler hated Marxism due to “…his paranoid conviction that the people calling themselves communists were in fact in on a foreign, Jewish conspiracy.”  (pg 75)  Mein Kampf is replete with such assertions.  What he failed to realize was that most Stalinists were anti-Semites themselves – even officially so.  Ruth Fischer, a half-Jewish communist radical (boy, talk about self-hate) who later became a high-level commissar in Communist East Germany, employed just such incendiary rhetoric while trying to convince the German proletariat to embrace communism, “Whoever cries out against Jewish capitalists is already a class warrior, even when he does not know it…Kick down the Jewish capitalists, hang them from the lampposts, and stamp upon them.” Pg 76   (Class warfare?  Oh yeah, just like the kind we hear about today.) 

Not to mix metaphors, and at the risk of beating a dead horse, but aware that this horse has nonetheless been stalking quite a long time, Karl Radek, a communist ideologue, observed in the early twenties that “Fascism is middle-class Socialism…”  Suffice to say that if Leon Trotsky, the co-founder of the Soviet state, could be labeled a fascist and “Nazi agent” at Stalin’s whim, anyone could be.  And anyone and everyone who has dared to oppose socialist whims ever since has been.  Pg 77

Now that we know why “right-wing” doesn’t mean fascism, next week we will learn why “left-wing” does.  Chapter Three:  “Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of Liberal Fascism” 

Liberal Fascism: A Discussion of the book by Jonah Goldberg

Intro and Chapter One

Jonah Goldberg repeatedly, almost ad nauseum, provides caveats that he is not calling any contemporary (liberal) figure a genocidal dictator, a Nazi, a murderer or a rascist.  I’m only going to say it once.  I’m reviewing the precepts contained in an important book.  If I think someone is a Nazi or Nazi-like, I won’t hesitate to say so.  However, it is not to be inferred from the following comments and I won’t waste my time responding to anyone who mistakenly sees themselves or their hero described herein.

Goldberg’s book was copyrighted in 2007 which means it was being written during the heart of the G.W. Bush years.  Mr. Obama had barely come on the scene and is only mentioned by name twice in the book.  Yet, Goldberg not only nails him cold, but the author’s comments are prescient as to the entire playbook of the leftist agenda.  I guess with Saul Alinski’s “Rules for Radicals” around it’s not so hard to pinpoint modern leftist political strateeegery (as Limbaugh puts it), but the accuracy of what came to pass only a few short months after the book’s release is uncanny.

Take this from page 14: “…liberalism today sees no realm of human life that is beyond significance…”, i.e. the post-Vietnam (in the U.S.) “everything is political” leftist meme.  As examples, he suggests further, “Sports, entertainment, your inner motives and outer appearance, all have political salience for liberal fascists.”  Almost a Nostradamian take on the Rush-NFL mess.

Obama is as predictable as the sunrise to Goldberg.  Later on in the same paragraph, he states, “…liberal fascists speak of a “Third Way” between right and left where all good things go together and all hard choices are “false choices”.  This is almost verbatim of Obama’s oft repeated accusation that we are dealing with “false dichotomies” when it comes to difficult trade-offs.

On page 15 Goldberg nails the left’s elevation of statism/fascism to the level of a secular religion complete with quasi-theological jargon.  Hillary’s “politics of meaning” and Obama’s “Hope and Change” are obvious examples.  If there were any doubts about this, Obama’s constant deification by the minion media and portrayal as some kind of latter day religious saint come to save us from ourselves should be enough to dispel it.

Speaking of syndicalism and the importance of Sorel’s myth-making as a means of motivating and captivating the masses, he again describes the NPR crowd with amazing accuracy.  From page 38 he reveals that “…a small cadre of professional intellectual radicals - who were prepared to reject compromise, parliamentary politics, and anything else that smacked of incremental reform – were indispensable to any revolutionary struggle.”  Does that sound eerily like the current playlist of healthcare reform, the stimulus package, cash for clunkers and everything else this administration is trying to cram down our throats without “compromise” or “incremental reform”?  It should.  It could easily be a contemporaneous description of Obama, Emanuel, Pelosi, Reid, et al in some sort of wild-eyed socialist planning session.

Moving on to page 43, Goldberg describes another favorite weapon in the libs arsenal of national self-destruction, “…its’ tendency to maintain a permanent sense of crisis.  Crisis is routinely identified as a core mechanism of fascism because it short-circuits debate and democratic deliberation.  Hence all fascistic movements commit considerable energy to prolonging a heightened state of emergency.”  Rahm Emanuel call your office.

Citing the program of Mussolini’s Fasci di Combattimento, page 46 looks like a talking points memo e-mailed from the DNC to its’ unholy minions yesterday.  Included are, briefly, enactment of a minimum wage, strict regulations on land use, a huge tax on capital, the nationalization of many industries, confiscation of the wealth of the church and on and on.  Coincidence?  Somehow I don’t think so.

Moving along to page 51, when describing the doctrinal Fascist economics which Mussolini was finally called upon to put on paper, that too had a strangely familiar and contemporary ring.  Goldberg states, “…it looked fairly recognizable as just another left-wing campaign to nationalize industry, or regulate it to the point where the distinction was hardly a difference.”  Pay close attention to this latter description.  It really doesn’t have to meet some lawyerly burden of proof to be a gubmint take-over, it only has to result in ultimate gubmint control.  You can call it “a co-op”, “ a single payer system”, “the public option” or “Santa Claus”, but if it results in gubmint control it really doesn’t matter, now does it?

What a huge indictment of modern day liberalism – and we’ve only covered the Intro and Chapter One of Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism.  One could conclude from this brief discourse that modern liberalism is far more deserving of the moniker “Fascist” than almost any brand of conservative.  Stay tuned next week for Chapter Two, “Adolph Hitler: Man of the Left”.      

This morning on Fox and Friends (Aug 20) Ed Rendell got religion as he lectured us about how the Bible says we are our brother’s keeper (which of course means we need to support Nobamacare).  Uh, correction Gov.  Cain asked God ”Am ‘I’ my brother’s keeper?”  when God wanted to know where Able was (Cain had murdered him.)  It has come to symbolize the need to care for one’s fellow man.  That is, the INDIVIDUAL’s need to care for his fellow man — NOT government’s need to.  Indeed, when God speaks to nations in the Bible, it says that they should not trun their back on God or on Israel.  Now, these particular injunctions are anathema to the progressive left.  Sorry guys. No fair cherry picking from the Holy Bible. It also has an injunction about adding to or subtracting from Holy writ, e.g. “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish [ought] from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.” — Deuteronomy 4:2

Besides, what ever happened to the Berlin Wall of separation between church and state the left is always screaming about?  And as far as INDIVIDUAL concern for one’s fellow man, President Bush showed it in spades with generous personal benevolence, while the Holy O Man barely gave a pittance to charity.  It has been well documented that conservatives give far more selflessly than do libs.  So Ed, don’t even go there.

Ed also waxed religious with injunctions that the “moral” thing to do was support nobamacare.  Oh yeah?  How moral is it to murder babies in the womb because they are inconvenient to the mother?  And deciding to withhold care from the elderly because they are too costly (see below)?  Excuse me.  Does Ed even know what morality is?

Next, Gov Ed from Penn is in full demagogic dudgeon about how people all over Pennsyvania are losing their jobs and thus their healthcare and don’t the opponents of Ocare have a heart?  Well Ed, it’s like this:  1) We could have (and have had) unemployment in this country at virtual zero.  Ronaldus Magnus showed us how (as did JFK before him.)  2) We could lower taxes on small businesses, the job creation engines of our country.  3) What about cutting or eliminating the capital gains tax to free up needed investment.  4) Or, we could cut back the power of unions so people can get a job; or lower the min wage so businesses can afford to hire somebody; or cut govt redtape; or reduce or eliminate the EPA, CAFE, OSHA, and all the other alphabet soup of regulatory agencies which are strangling U.S. companies.  The list really goes on and on Ed.  Pick one and go with it if you are really worried about anyone losing their jobs.

Next you complain that one or two insurance companies have a MONOPOLY on the healthcare of Pennsylvanians and face NO COMPETITION!  Heaven Forefend!!  Some how unions having a monpoly on employment in certain sectors doesn’t bother you in the least.  And the fact that govt healthcare will have a MONOPOLY with NO COMPEITITION has cost you no sleep either.  Which is it Ed?  To be fair, you probably don’t care who has the monpoly as long as some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in DC has his or her paws on the levers of power and controls all the decisions.

I know — a HEALTH CZAR!!  You read it here first folks.  Who will be the wizard with the brains, knowledge and temperment to make wise, fair, careful and highly technical decisions about the healthcare of 300 million people hourly and on a daily basis?  Could it be?  It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s Bro. Zeke Emanuel who has already publically proclaimed his superior intellect to the average (un) American Bozo.  Let’s take a look at “Dr.” Zeke’s prescription for those who cannot contribute sufficiently to the common weal from a 1996 Hastings Center article:

“Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia. A less obvious example Is [not] guaranteeing neuropsychological services to…children with learning disabilities [who cannot learn to] read [or] learn to reason.”

Got that?  Old folks in decline and less than perfect children put on the healthcare cost chopping block is Ed’s idea of morality.  (Take THAT Sarah and Trig! David Letterman’s got nothing on the Nobamacare crowd!) It’s a brave new world.  Since no one can find a missing link to prove Darwin’s theory, the Libs are going to IMPOSE evolution on us from the top down.  If this sounds alot like Margret Sanger’s racist eugenics, you’re on the right track.  After all, Sanger’s American Birth Control League (ABCL), along with some other groups, eventually became known as Planned Parenthood.

And now we can see the true direction top down, “healthcare”  decisions by the gubmint will lead us.  Who knows what criteria will be used to decide who gets pushed down the stairs next: conservative?  Christian? pro small govt? “right-wing extremist”? member of an angry townhall “mob”? The possibilities are endless all of them lead to the same place: whoever is left will be beholden to the gubmint — or else!

Old Latin proverb:  When the gobmint robs Peter to pay Paul, the gubmint can always count on the support of Paul…

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Al Gore is a giant windbag.  Maybe he will become the next source of “alternative” energy, because it certainly should not be ethanol.  Like most questions of environmental policy, a failed politician cum disastermonger is really the wrong person to listen to regarding serious discussions of economic reality, or any other kind of reality for that matter.

Ethanol is one such reality which, when examined closely, more nearly resembles a nightmare for “the planet” (Gawd, I hate that usage) than a salvation.  Using food to supplement gasoline is just a horrible construct to begin with.  And the short, middle and long-term effects will be a dirtier, costlier and less diverse ecosystem.

Let’s begin with the obvious.  America produces half the world’s corn crop and most of its’ exported corn.  So, when the fed govt coerces gas producers to buy corn and add it to their product, guess what happens to the price of corn for everybody else (think private healthcare for the answer to this one)?  Adding to that upward price pressure is that other crops will be plowed under to plant, that’s right, corn.  Which in turn runs up the cost of every other row crop.  And guess who that affects most — the world’s poor.  (Mexico City has already experienced what could be called “tortilla riots”.)  Josette Sheeran of the UN World Food Program has said they will not be able to feed nearly as many people as last year with the same number of donors.  Heard any protests against ethanol lately from the usual “world hunger” suspects?  Me neither.

Now, let’s move on to the stuff itself.  It takes 1.3 gallons of fossil to make one gallon of ethanol.  (Ethanol can’t be piped, it’s got to be trucked.  And because it also has to be planted, weeded, harvested, distilled and transported, It is an energy intensive source of energy.)  In addition, ethanol is not as efficient as gasoline.  For instance, if it takes 10 gals of gas to go 200 miles, it will take 15 gals of ethanol (or thereabouts) to go the same distance, so you use more of it.  Not very promising so far.  But it gets worse.

What about countries, or supergovernments like the EU, that don’t have ready access to America’s vast Midwestern breadbasket (cornbasket?)  Well, they go to countries like Borneo (Malaysia) and Sumatra for palm oil, which also can be used as a biofuel.  What is happening there?  Not surprisingly, since the EU is bound by the Kyoto protocol to have 10% ethanol by 2020, producer countries are slashing and burning forests at an alarming rate.  Highly intelligent Orangutans, beautiful Sumatran tigers and noble Asian elephants are being slaughtered because they interfere with the production of palm oil.   No mention of this on the World Wildlife Fund’s website where this travesty is generically described as “…the intense conflict between people and elephants…In Borneo and Sumatra, [where] commercial logging and conversion to agriculture are doing swift and irreversible damage…”  Although their website is alive with entreaties to “Save the Planet,” no mention of palm oil plantations is made.

Another product which can be used as biofuel is sugar.  And a world of it exists nearby — Brazil has vast reaches of soil perfectly situated to grow tons of it and plenty of inexpensive labor, too.  The Carribean islands have been growing it since the 17th Century (for the rum ‘ya know mon!)  Indeed, ethanol from sugar costs .80 cents a gal to make while corn ethanol costs $1.10 per gal.  So, essentially, it can be grown, harvested, distilled and transported to America for less than it takes to make a biofuel out of domestic corn.  Why is this not done?  That’s right, sugar subsidies and protectionism.  (Another holdover from WWII when sugar production was subsidized due to war scarcities.)  So, similar to the EU mandates mentioned above, it’s not “the market” or capitalism to blame, it’s central planning and top down economics which leads to so much waste, cost and eco-destruction.  (Here’s a hint: the market has ALREADY figured out the most efficient fuels to use, duh.)

Next we come to nuclear.  But sorry, the topic makes me so mad I can’t think about it for long without, in Glenn Beck’s colorful phrase, blood shooting out of my eyes.  Suffice to say that if nuclear capacity had continued apace after Three Mile Island and “The China Syndrome”, that is to say, had not been crippled by the econuts, we would actually be IN COMPLIANCE with the Kyoto protocols on CO2 emissions by now.  (I thought liberals loved France, where 80% of their energy comes from nuclear.)

And what about the forests themselves?  In fifty years, the average forest will absorb far more CO2 than will be saved by plowing it under, building a palm oil plantation or corn field, turning it into ethanol and burning it in your car.  And the devastating effects on biodiversity have already been mentioned.

On top of all this, there is really no clear evidence that anthropomorphic global warming is anything more than a pipe dream.  Far from the case being closed as the ANNOINTED ONE asserts, evidence continues to pour in that the man-made climate change is an equivocal theory at best.  Global temperatures have cooled in the past ten years.  The polar bear population is actually increasing (as are the ranks of caribou even after the Alaskan pipeline was built, in spite of anxious warnings from eco-extremists.)  Reams of books have been written exposing one stupid enviro myth after another.  (See Iain Murray’s “The Really Inconvenient Truths” for a good start.)  Alas, Al Gore’s hometown, Nashville TN, recently marked several record-matching or record-breaking nightime lows for July.  That’s JULY.  In the DEEP SOUTH.  Anyway, I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

So, ethanol is just another enviro-hoax being perpetrated on the American public–and at great cost to them.  Taxpayers subsidize its’ production and then pay a heavy tax on its’ use.  It appears to be a giant transfer of wealth to Agribusiness which will have the net effect of harming the environment and impovershing the citizenry.  Man, what a deal.  Back in the day, I thought only Soviet Russian could offer largescale, widespread corruption like that.  Now, I can enjoy it in the convenience of my own home. 

Well, I need to close now so I can get out to the store and stock up on incandescent lightbulbs.  Do you have any idea what a costly, environmental nightmare CLF light bulbs will be?  Just don’t break one unless you’re wearing an industrial grade HAZMAT suit.  First though, I have to clean up the mess from my low-flush toilet that doesn’t work right (maybe if I flush it two or three more times…)

What has happened to our country in the last 40 years is magical, and not in a good way.  Not in the sense of joyous wonder with mysitical underpinnings.  But in the sense of how have so many of our cherished beliefs and traditions been so thoroughly trashed in so short a time and with such totality in the public mind?  Now, I’ll admit that dumbing down of the citizenry by public “education” is a very important feature of the process.  But other, more subtle factors are at play here.  And remember, the key to magic is misdirection and the Lamestream media use it liberally (pun intended.)

As soon as their newly historic nominee to the SCCOTUS makes a blatantly racist remark, Lib damage control goes into full alert mode.  Immediately, a competing story becomes national news.  In this case, it’s the rather mundane tale of a wacky housewife who calls 911 and falsely claims two black men have forced her and her daughter into the trunk of their car.  AH HAH!   See, somewhere in the U.S. a white woman is using a racist excuse for her bad behavior.  So, since perception is reality, in the public mind anyway, Sonia Sotomayor’s remarks really aren’t THAT bad.  And, look over here, the “R” word (racism) still exists in America.  (Gee, ya think?  Unfortunately, it always will.  Its a character defect, like greed or lust or nose picking.  As long as human beings populate the earth, it will always be with us.)  But observe and appreciate the mechanism in place.  When their totalitarian march to undermine the Constitution in the name of compassion is theatened, they retaliate swiftly and surely with a competing meme to confuse the public and/or create a false sense of moral equivalency therein.

This is wrong on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start.  First, so what?  So there is a wacko making a false report to police.  It happens dozens of times a day.  Why is it national news?  Second, the false accuser is a private citizen, she has absolutely NO connection to S. Sotomayor’s fitness for the Supreme Court.  Third, using race for a scapegoat is nothing new and has been used liberally (there’s that word again) by every race to pin the blame on someone else.  Let’s see, the CIA is responsible for forcing black ghetto dwellers to become addicted to crack.  The same CIA invented AIDS and introduced into the population knowing it would affect blacks more visciously than other races.  (Man, I won’t even touch the racist assumptions behind that one, either in context of the effect of the disease or in the motivations of the alleged “perpetrators.)  I even saw one poor black man from the Ninth Ward on TV, soon after Katrina, swearing emphatically that “the government” had purposely “blown up” the levees.  So obviously, racial conspiracy theories and alleged blame are not wanting in post-modern America.

Do other instances of seemingly “coincidental,” but conveniently (and apparently) contracdictory news stories showimg up in close proximity exist?  You betcha.  Let’s see.  The Duke Lacrosse Team comes to mind.  The very day they were completely and undeniably exonorated after months and months of lamestream media pounding, and long after serious doubts about Nifong’s case had arisen, the propriety and racial sensitivity of, guess who, yes, that paragon of restraint and studied commentary, Don Imus no less, suddenly and blindingly comes to the fore.  The Imus story took over the news cycle, as if no one knew this clown was a loud-mouthed, offensive buffon from way back.  (And a solid liberal until he became useful for media misdirection.)  But, surprise, the exact same theme is presented for your consideration.  A “typical” white man makes racially insensitive remarks, so it was really O.K. and not that bad to falsely accuse, harrass and hound, almost send to prison and nearly ruin the lives of three obviously innocent white guys.  (And did I mention they were “privileged,” too?)  Another rationaiztion at the time was “So what?”  Black men had been falsely accused and sent to prison before.  Hey, I thought the idea was to eliminate racism, not simply swap victims and continue as before. 

See how it works.  The MSM was oh so wrong about a bunch of white boys being racists, so, rather than admit one mea culpa or offer one apology, they simply blasted another story with the opposite meme on the airwaves (and bandwidths or whatever.)  Think it’s a coincidenc?  You can probably think of other examples on your own.

The Man from Hope himself made a clumsy attemp at this very thing by bombing an aspirin factory the day of Monica Lewinski’s tesitmony against him.  Going back further, the testimony of bright, articulate, conservative (and black) character witnesses for Clarence Thomas were shown at 3 AM.  Anita Hill was prime time.  And, I may be getting into tin foil hat territory here, but doesn’t it seem that imediately prior to every major attempt at legislating gun control and restricting 2nd Amendment rights a massive shooting occurs somewhwere in the U.S.?  I’ve never been much of a conspiracy theorist, but I’m really beginning to see a pattern here.  Last night, on Hannity I believe, several Dem officios were offering almost verbatim accolades for S. Sotomayor, e.g. “a compelling personal story,” “appointed by Bush and Clinton (to different courts)”, “top of her class at Princeton (oh yeah?  If that’s so important why won’t the Annointed One Himself release his college and law school grades?)”, etc.  Until recently, I believed it would be difficult for diverse members of a large group, even a political party, to keep their stories straight on some kind of concerted smear of misdirection.  But in light of the almost unanimous talking points expressed in favor of S. Sotomayor by Axelrod, et al, now I’m not so sure.  Maybe they have enforcemet tactics which are not readily reported by the MSm, like ruining people’s lives and reputations if they don’t toe the party line or try to thwart party perogativees.  (Attorneys for GM creditors who insisted on a greater return for their debt than 22 cents on the dollar were threatened with personal destruction; also,  Joe the Plumber; Carrie Prejean; Paula Jones; Linda Tripp, Katherine Harris; etc.)

Now the MSM and their lackeys are pretty clever.  The don’t often end up with as much egg on their faces as in the Duke LaCrosse case.  But no one can doubt they have become masters at misdirection, damage control and socialist propaganda.

If such is the case, at least to some degree, let’s be aware to the point of serious investigation.  Who was this woman who alleged an attack by black men?  What are her political affiliations?.  Who has she had recent contact with?  Is she just a nut?  Maybe so.  But the presumed equal and opposite racial (read political) memes suddenly arriving on the public scene by “coincidence” should not only be looked at askance, but should be investigated and highlighted.  Why is just another false report made to police suddenly national news?  It happens all the time — by members of all races.

I don’t know if this is legal or not, but I’m sure the people behind the curtain at RS will let me know, one way or the other.  The following comment is too good to pass up.  It was posted by Proud2bAmerican as a reponse to an article in the online version of the WT entitled,

Panel votes for probe of ‘extremist’ report

Bipartisan move calls on Napolitano to yield documents

By Audrey Hudson (Contact) | Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Proud2bAmerican

The ridiculous assertions reached in the “right wing extremism” report from DHS are a result of the use of biased information from the left-wing, radical, open-borders Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This organization has termed Americans who call for the enforcement of existing US immigration law or the completion of the congressionally mandated border fence hate groups. The SPLC infamously falsified information and stated that there was a large increase in hate crimes last year while the Department of Justice reported a decrease in hate crimes this past year. Unbelievably SPLC is actually instructing federal law enforcement as to what constitutes an extremist or a hate crime through a course they teach at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC)*. Two of the agencies involved in the “right wing extremism” report (U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service) train at FLETC (see http://www.fletc.gov/about-fletc/partner-organizations for a list of federal agencies who train there. Please see: Page 8 of 10 of the DHS report titled-Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.** The report states- A prominent civil rights organization reported in 2006 that “large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads, and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the [U.S.] armed forces.” This is a verbatim quote from an SPLC report titled-Racist Extremists Active in U.S. Military -SPLC urges Rumsfeld to adopt zero-tolerance *** Page 2 of 8 of MIAC Strategic Report - The Modern Militia Movement-2-20-09 “The SPLC reports that between the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and 2005 that roughly 60 right wing extremist plots were uncovered. “**** Under no circumstances should the radical agenda-driven left wing SPLC be allowed to continue to instruct federal law enforcement or to contribute fraudulent intelligence to Department Of Homeland Security reports. If this travesty is not remedied patriotic Americans will find themselves termed hate group members, extremists or even terrorists for simply calling for the enforcement of US law. * Go to www.splc.org then Intelligence Project then Law Enforcement Training-see Extremist Training and Hate Crime Training ** http://www.docstoc.com/docs/5410658/DHS-Report-on-Right-Wing-Extremism *** http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?site_area=1&aid=197 **** http://wikileaks.org/leak/miac-militia-2009.pdf

This stuff is maddening.  Imagine the outcry should GW Bush have used the Aryan Brotherhood as a direct source for misinformation used in a high profile policy or widely distributed “intelligence” product.  Does anyone at the DHS actually vet anything sent to them by a highly partisan, far left-wing advocacy group?  Or by anyone for that matter?  Waaaay scary.  Why not just adopt some policies from the mission statement of the Communist Party of the USA?

The one missing ingredient which most often results in effectuation of the law of unintended consequences (LOUC) is human behavior.  When new cars came out with anti-lock brake systems, it was heralded as a breakthrough in the advancement of automobile safety.  Thousands of lives would be saved, so it was thought, because cars could now stop far more quickly and safely than before.  There was just one thing wrong with all the good intentions and new day dawning pronouncements — human nature.  Guess what?  People just drove faster and waited until longer to stop.  It might be argued that the advent of ABS increased automobile mishaps.

When Ralph Nader and company decided cars were too big and the environment too fragile, CAFE standards and smaller cars were introduced.  Surprise, smaller cars are also more dangerous and a lot more people started to die in automobile crashes, per capita.  The environment one, American motorists zero.  And the LOUC result: millions of people driving Sequoia’s, Yukon’s, Denali’s and the like — vehicles which easily burn as much gas as those old, big tail fin Buicks and Caddy’s we used to drive. 

Rachel Carson, of “Silent Spring” fame (infamy?), alarmed the world that DDT was a horrible poison and must be banished!  Like sheep, world governments, sometimes pressured by the U.S., eliminated widespread use of the chemical.  And yet another unintended consequence raised it’s ugly head - millions began dying from malaria - mostly in the Third World (Note to NY Times headline writer, “New Govt Policy Hits Poor Hardest.”)  So, after being reintroduced, people discovered that DDT wasn’t so bad after all, especially considering the alternative, and it had the extra added attraction of being lethal to swarms of disease ridden mosquitoes.

It has been said that the road  to H*LL is paved with good intentions - and so it may be.  If so, government at all levels is keeping that bit of infrastructure well-paved.  Let’s take the “crisis” in health care just for giggles. 

Many people don’t have healthcare.  The reason most don’t is because they are young and healthy.  They are, in effect, gambling that they will not need health coverage anytime soon.  They choose to spend that discretionary income on toys, e.g. video games, cars, motorcycles, jet skis and so on.  Personal choice. 

And, indeed, many of the most expensive patients, e.g. drug addicts, gang-bangers, etc., wouldn’t buy health insurance if they could.  Why should they?  They will be taken care of at the expense of everybody else.  Except that runs up the cost and horribly skews the economic burden of healthcare. 

The law that no one be turned away from hospitals is a great and humane idea, but the impact of human nature was not considered.  Since there is no such thing as a free lunch, such a “come one come all” system will sooner rather than later become economically untenable.  LOUC result?  No one can afford healthcare anymore, or soon they won’t. 

So now we turn to another side of the “crisis” — provider costs.

Well, this huge cost of healthcare is driven by physicians and institutions being forced to practice defensive medicine.  Why not run $2000 worth of unnecessary tests if it will save you from a $20 million lawsuit?  The simple solution of course would be to limit medical liability, i.e. tort reform.  Anybody heard that term lately?  No, no.  The malpractice jackpot system, another great idea whose consequences weren’t considered, is now helping to make standard healthcare unaffordable.  And remember, it’s mostly lawyers in Congress, so they aren’t about to de-incentivize the malpractice game.  They may eventually have to leave govt service and return to actually earning a living, if you can call convincing juries that C-Sections cause multiple sclerosis “earning a living.”  (John Edwards, call your office — and quit fooling around with that bimbo!)

(We won’t consider that antiquated, WWII holdover: the third-party payer system, at this time since it is more an example of govt programs which never die.  But, suffice to say, people use far more of something they don’t see themselves actually paying for and complain about it less, as well.  For instance, if people were writing ten thousand dollar checks to the IRS every year, rather than simply ignoring the amount withheld from their paychecks, there would be far more opposition to confiscatory taxation.  In any event, a system which was designed to skirt wartime wage controls by adding healthcare as a benefit is yet another reason for exorbitant healthcare costs.)

Now the proffered solution is an exquisite example of the LOUC (or so I’d like to think.  It could easily be a calculated attempt to simply rearrange society’s “winners and losers,” i.e. a govt-imposed scheme launched precariously on the vague and politically suseptible chimera of “fairness” vs the far more realistic and equitable merit-based system.)  The proposed solution in question?  Wait for it…Nationalized Health Care, of course.

There are so many things wrong with nationalized health care it’s hard to know where to begin.  For starters, we could simply look at Britain, Canada or anywhere else in the world it has actually been tried.  What a disaster!  Think you were frustrated waiting on line for two hours at the DMV only to be told you have the wrong form?  Now imagine enduring that nightmare while sick as a dog.   For greater detail, read one of Theodore Darymple’s books, e.g. “Not with a Bang, but a Whimper” or practically any other of his masterful tomes.  It is reported that some people wait years for simple procedures and months just to see a physician.  Sounds pretty grim to me.  What’s the LOUC result?  Folks with money travel to countries where such draconian regulations are not in effect — like they now do to the U.S.  In other words, the rich get healthier and the poor get sicker.

Next up, the real hidden prize in Nationalized Health Care — Rationing.  Oh yeah.  Over 55?  Sorry, but dialysis will not be cost effective for the state.  We’ll make you as comfortable as possible.  Life saving surgeries?  Sorry, not if you’re over 60.  No no.  Way too expensive.  It may be the first time in our history as a nation when the expected lifespan begins to DECREASE with each successive generation.  And, of course, it will be illegal for doctors to practice outside the system (that might be “unfair!”)  LOUC result?   People become deparate and offer BRIBES in order to live.  In other words — rampant corruption.

And exactly what will induce doctors to endure ten years of medical training to work in a system where they will make no more that the average plumber (no offense to plumbers)?  One of two LOUC results will obtain.  Either, doctors will flee the U.S. to countries where they ARE able to make earnings commensurate with their level of training, or qualifications to become an MD will be significantly lessened, thereby lowering the overall quality of medical care.  Are we beginning to get the picture, boys and girls?

And we haven’t even considered political abuse and other types of chicanery.  When such a scheme comes into play in the U.S. I will guarantee one thing.  Govt officials, starting with members of Congress, will be exempt.  Soon, of course, it will become obvious to all concerned that the gold plated and highly exclusive world of Congressional healthcare (basically, the cream of the former system of private care, but now paid for with tax money) is far superior to anything available to the average Joe (or Jane.)  So, politically powerful govt employee unions will lobby for and get their own special healthcare system.  Eventually, the landscape wil begin to resemble the old Soviet Union, where party members live well and everyone else lives poorly, if at all.  LOUC, a two tired system which essentially allows one group to live a long and healthy life and another, well, take a number and stand in that line over there.  The term “divisive” barely describes conditions in post Nationalized Healthcare America.

And so it is with all govt programs intending to “better” anyone, but which do not consider human nature.  Consider the govt-devised Section 8 housing to “help” poor people have low cost housing.  What was the outcome?  Well, it just so happens I worked my way through college pulling maintenance on Section 8 housing for a landlord/owner.  I replaced back doors almost weekly because the kids wrecked them just as regularly.  I replaced bathroom floors because the family took showers without benefit of a shower curtain.  I replaced windows because somebody got drunk and broke the place up.  Why was this?  Sorry, it was not because the tennants were “bad” people — it was because they were HUMAN people.  If you don’t pay much for it and don’t have to fix it if it breaks, what’s your incentive to keep it in repair or respect the property?  LOUC result: housing projects which resemble war zones, low income areas even firefighters won’t go into without police protection — indeed, areas where the police themselves won’t even go into without at least ten other police units.  (And the resultant cries for “decent, affordable housing.”  Of course, those may be intended, as previously alluded to.)

This really shouldn’t be news to anyone.  Ever heard the expression, “Beaten like a rented mule”?  Conservatives don’t “hate” poor people.  It is simply that we know, with few exceptions, certain qualities and choices can move people out of poverty and certain others can keep them there.  We believe that motivating and teaching folks to change so that they acquire the former qualities and make the former choices is far superior than giving people stuff they haven’t earned.  It’s similar to the difference between teaching folks to fish and giving them a fish.  LOUC result?  One group becomes productive, self-sufficient and happy, while the other becomes dependent, grievance-mongering and never satisfied with today’s portion (having not earned it.) 

There are so many examples of this I honestly don’t know where to stop.  God help us if our economy is ever overtaken by the Nanny state.  Why will people work without hope of reward?  Remember the “employee” at the old Soviet tractor factory?  When asked his salary by a Western reporter, he responded, “Well, it’s like this.  They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”

O.K. boys and girls of Red State, let’s play that exciting new PC parlour game: “Who’s the Racist?”!

Man #1 is an adult Caucasian male who works for his father’s comapny.  His dad owns and maintains very low rent housing units (the owner of which is sometimes known as a “slumlord.”)  He will inherit this property (and the tidy earnings pertaining thereto) when his conservative father passes on.  His conservative son will inherit it when he passes on.  Many of his tenants are minorities, usually black.  If rent isn’t paid on time, or if it’s more convenient to evict when the lease expires, the tenant goes - no questions asked.  Man #1 insists that this is all perfectly legal and probably moral, too.

 Man #2 is also an adult Caucasian man.  He works as a therapist and has spent his career in the so-called “helping profession.”  He has worked for drug-treatment centers, community mental health centers, half-way houses and all the rest.  He even earned his masters at an HBC (Historically Black College).  His father and mother were born in near poverty and inherited nothing.  He will inherit only a small, three bedroom tract house, maybe 1700 sq ft.  His grandmother lived in a rent subsidized apt during the last years of her life, his mother lives on a fixed govt. annuity and he himself has lived on foodsatmps in the past - even in a men’ shelter for a time.

Man #1 lives with his girlfriend in an all-white suburb.  He pays no rent and is happy to leave the depressed part of town where his (dad’s) rental housing is located and where his folks still live.  He worries about them because across the street a bunch of shiftless slackers drink, use drugs and commit crime.  He is actively seeking to evict them as well and purchase the property - no doubt to turn it into another profit machine for him and his family.  He himself has never lived anywhere except under his own, his father’s or his girlfriend’s roof.  In the suburb, his white neighbor’s abhor a new plan by the local housing authority to buy up private property and move in former residents of housing projects.  Subsequently, it is believed,  surrounding property values will be decimated, people who can will leave, the tax base will disappear and their once beautiful city will become just another burnt-out urban shell.

Man # 2 lives in a mixed neighborhood, with open homosexuals across the street, down the street and next door.  He is perfectly happy where he lives and likes most of his neighbors.   There is some crime in the area, but he trusts his neighbors and believes they will watch out for him.  He was startled to learn that some local black folks are opposed to the housing authority’s plan as well and for the same reasons - they have hard-earned equity, too.  As a result, what man #2 has heard about opponents to the plan being racists is now shaken .

Man #1 attends an all-white church in another all-white part of town.  He is active in his church and dislikes all the lipservice fellow churchmembers give to “helping the poor.”  He believes post-conception birth control is a fine idea and that public funds can be used to promote the common welfare.  He does very little actual volunteer or service work himself.

Man #2 attends a mixed-race, inner-city church where the minister is black.  Even some inter-racial couples attend.  The church itself is actually the last piece of a domestic missionary service work which includes: buying up surrounding slum property, restoring it to like-new conditions and moving the original families back in; assisting local residents access social services; and providing direct assistance such as clothing, foodstuffs, transportation and the like.  Church members provide tutoring for the children, afterschool daycare, recreational opportunities and so on.  Man #2 volunteered for Habitat for Humanity  many years building homes for mostly poor black people, delivered Meals-on-Wheels to mostly poor black shut-ins for many years, tutored black children at the local inner-city elementary school - suffice to say, Man #2 is a real bleeding-heart do-gooder.  Man # 2 believes post-conception birth control is racist because pregnent black women from the inner-city are most likely to have an abortion.

Man #1 becomes hostile when his beliefs are questioned.  He often lashes out with personal invective.  Friends he has known for twenty years become an enemy if they have the audacity to disagree with his political views.  As long as political decisions don’t affect him personally, he is O.K. with it.  As far as possible in today’s world, he surrounds himself with like-minded people and rarely hears a non-orthodox word.

Man # 2 likes to engage those with opposing views in civilized, rational discussion about the issues in an effort to discover the most beneficial solution.  He is concerned about political decisions which he believes harm others, whether they affect him personally or not.  He is surrounded by people with differing views and he considers them friends.  He is in touch with his feelings and wouldn’t think of questioning the motives of others.  He often entertains opposing opinions and sees them as challenges.

Man #1 is a member of an all-white service fellowship, the vast majorty of whom believe as he does.  Those few members that may hold a different view keep their heads down and their mouths shut for fear of social ostracism.  If members of another race do wander in, they are treated w/overwhelming politeness and handled w/kid gloves.  The fellowship’s members are anxious to the point of obsequiousness to prove they are welcoming and “not racist.”  They mostly believe minorities are somehow inferior and must have special help to make it in this world.

Man # 2 is a member of a mixed-race service fellowship with regularly attending minority members.  Anyone is free to discuss their thoughts w/o fear of being shunned socially.  Non-white members are treated like anyone else - neither patronized nor ignored.  Members mostly believe minorities are as good as anyone else and can make it on their own w/o special favor or privilege.

We report - YOU decide.

The United States is quickly becoming Detroit writ large.  Detroit was a one horse town, but with a huge, profitable horse.  So naturally, being located in a liberal, Democratic state, the formerly private enterprise of manufacturing cars for profit, became a cash cow for all comers - government at the local, state and federal levels, unions, shakedown artists of all varieties, etc.  The once Big Three were assaulted by an alphabet soup of govt agencies, regulations and assorted parasites on the body corporate: the EPA, OSHA, CAFE, ADA, IRS, AFL-CIO, the DNC (just kidding, I think) and so forth.  Well, in a global economy, they were competing against a host of international entities unfettered by the alphabet attack.  Naturally, American auto companies begin to decline.  And, like night follows day, along comes the Obamanation crowd declaring that the “free market” is not working.

On the national level, Prince Harry, Queen Nancy, Barney’s Frank and Chris Dood declare that the failure of the auto industry, banking industry, housing, credit, etc. are all examples of horribly neglectful underregulation by former Presidents Bush, Reagan et al.  So, preceeded and accompanied by a constant drumbeat of such twisted and factless absurdities, the American economy has now become the personal bank account of leftist utopians.  The new statists (fascists) are now using tax money to fund a laundry list of left-wing social engineering schemes and a plethora of pork barrel political pay-offs: everything from why pigs smell to promoting astronomy in Hawaii.  Everything that is, except the few Constitutionally mandated perogatives of the federal govt: defending the borders, fending off all enemies foreign and domestic, judicial review of legislation (rather than activism) and so on.

Even when the Obama gaffe machine (think Napolitano, Biden) attempts to address one of these issues, say domestic terroism, it stinks to high heaven of politics and it’s incompetent to boot.  Consider one Daniel San Diego, a left wing animal rights “activist” who is the first and, indeed, ONLY domestic terrorist to make the FBI’s most wanted list.  His is a name unfamiliar to Morris Dees and Janet Napolitano, who are busy outing active members of the Armed Forces, veterans, pro-life advocates and the tiny number of Americans who still believe in the 2nd and 10th Amendments as “right-wing extremists.”  Fox News has filed a FOIA request to unearth the documents upon which Napolitano’s policy statement was based.  It’s really not a secret, is it?  Only a short time before, or maybe the same day of Napolitano’s obomination, Morris Dees of the extremely left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center released a document which he himself said “dovetails nicely” with the new Pentagon report on so-called right wing-extremism.  I’ll just bet it does.

And BTW, did you realize Dees and his company of self-righteous witch hunters has supplied a list of “enemies” to the Pentagon and, according to Dees, the Defense Dept has “removed” such people from the Armed Forces.  Excuse me, but when did anyone vote on Mr. Dees’ elevation to chief political Inquisitor?  And who gave him the power to suggest names of ideological suspects to the Defense Dept?  And exactly what criteria was utilized by Dees and Friends to determine who, exactly, is an enemy of the state?  And who is supplying the Pentagon with a list of supposed left-wing subversives among active duty troops?  And would anyone act on such a list were it provided?  And what about those individuals who were erroneously targeted as “dangerous” members of the right wing - already a highly subjective category?  Who and how will their careers, reputations and lives be restored to them and how will they be made whole financially?  Does anyone have the courage to ask Obama and company questions such as these?  Of course, even if they are asked and answered, you will never hear about them from the see no left-wing evil, hear no-left wing evil and speak no left-wing evil traditional media.  Just ask anyone who recently attended a TEA party.

So, the Feds villify and ruin anyone who opposes their wanton and unconstitutional abuse of power, while simultaneously sucking the U.S. economy dry to fund every conceivable form of elitist nonsense which floats into their fettered and fetid imaginations.  Especially popular among the leftist ruling class (and, unfortunately, among the right as well) are measures which they believe will help them remain ensconced in their seats of power and priviledge in perpetuity.  Ah, what a shame that the road to Utopia and bliss is paved with so many freedoms which Americans used to take for granted.  “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?”

You know, I was listening to Mark Levin on the radio last night on the way to my night job when a 10 y/o called in to congratulate Mr. Levin on his latest book.  (No. 1 Best Seller, “Liberty and Tyranny”)  Also, and by his comments it was obvious he understood the underlying concepts, the boy wanted to voice his agreement that our country is quickly headed down the road to serfdom (apologies to Fredrick Von Hayek.)  Now my question is, if a prepubescent child can understand these things, why can’t a majority of American voters?  Or has ACORN, Morris Dees and all the rest so poisoned the well that honest elections can no longer be heald in this country?  Maybe we should dispatch Jimma Cata to various polling places throughout the country in 2010 to ensure that ”fariness” is maintained and good triumphs over evil.  Doubtful.

Liberals pay attention.  In Huntsville, AL, right now, a primer is being written on exactly how to take a beautiful, pleasant Southern city and turn it into Detroit South.  The Huntsville Housing Authority (HHA) bought a luxury apartment complex in an affluent neigborhood, is evicting the residents, and plans to move in denizens of an inner city housing project.  Since this abortion was performed by members of the city council and the HHA in secret, an original news item does not exist.  But you can get the basics here:

Briefly, the SE section of town is the higher property value, lower crime area, while the NW contains mostly high crime and drug infested neighborhoods.   And yes, the SE is mostly white and the NW is mostly black — but it was not always that way.  Forty years ago, all Huntsville neighborhoods were more or less quite decent places to live, e.g. low crime, good schools, nice aesthetics, etc. and the races were more or less integrated throughout the community.  However, in the sixties, when most of the housing projects were built either downtown or in the NW, well, you can guess what happened.  Those who were able moved to the SE.  (The NE consists of largely older, cotton mill era housing and most of the SW is covered by a military installation.)

Well, comes the 2008 election and Mr. Tommy Battle, a white mayoral candidate, promised black folk in the NW that future NIMBY projects would be located “somewhere else,” meaning, of course, the SE.  Mr. Battle is now mayor.  One great thing can be said for him, he kept his campaign promises — this one at least.  Now, officially, he has no power to determine where housing projects are located.  In reality, however, he has great influence.

One of the local racial charlatans,  a city councilman named Showers, says any opposition to the move is “racially tinged.”  How about “financially tinged” or “unfairness tinged” or just plain “wrong tinged?”   A few months ago, another secret decision moved Huntsville’s largest homeless shelter from the SW to the NW.  Showers led the racism charge on that one as well.  Obviously, a quid pro quo was in the making in addition to the heretofore mentioned political intrigues. 

There are so many things amiss with the planned dispersion of public housing that I don’t know where to begin.  The following opposition blog is typical of the kind of comments being made by the local lib establishment:

It’s really sad that this day and age that people still can not welcome diversity. It is a shame that people value property over human life. South Huntsville is no better than any other part of town. Everyone is judging and stereotyping the people moving in and they know nothing about them. You all have your theories that none of them work, they are not “law abiding, tax paying citizens”. It was stated at the meeting that more crime happens outside of the projects than in. Just read the police blotter in the paper.I will never put any of you on a pedestal and say that just because you live on that side of town that you are better. Please. The south side has been catered to long enough. It is about times that things were even in this city.

Anyway, just how will living in a formerly luxe, but soon to be thrashed apt building with fifty other govt dependents improve anyone’s self-respect?  What can a modern black kid say whose single parent lives in the projects?  ”Hey, come over to my HHA provided, rent subsidized apt, but watch out you don’t get mugged or shot.”  Some dignity.

When I was a boy, one of my black friends lived in a neighborhood of small houses located where a public middle school stands now. Granted, they were not as nice as our three bedroom tract houses in a nearby subdivision, but you know what? It was HIS home. He could say, “Let’s go over to MY house.” Now that’s dignity.

And what of the future of Huntsville Real Estate?  Will the HHA be buying up expensive homes next?  Will anyone even want to purchase residential real estate anywhere in the city limits for fear of losing a huge chunk of their investment by govt fiat?  When affluent residents move out to the county or even neighboring counties, what will happen to the tax base?  Will ALL of Huntsville become another example of urban blight, complete with burned-out buildings and drive-by shootings?

And I haven’t even begun to discuss fifth amendment taking violations.  I realize SCOTUS has muddied the water lately regarding the exact meaning of “public purpose,” but at some point will Obama’s minions simply have the right to take anything for any reason.  Yeah, I know.  Such a possiblity seemed far-fetched to me only a few short years ago, too.  To quote a recent column by George Will:

The court’s virtual nullification of the “public use” requirement encourages lawlessness, which will proliferate until the court enunciates the constitutional principle that the takings clause protects money against egregious seizures.

If a person’s hard-won home equity does not represent money, what does?  Like I said, there are so many things wrong with the council and HHA’s actions it’s hard to know where to start.  The more troubling queston, though, is where will it end?

Let me begin by admitting that I stole the Air Diva tag from Michelle Malkin’s recent column on this subject.  The divine Miss M (Michelle) hit the nail on the head regarding Queen Nancy’s hypocrisy.  Ms Malkin expounded on San Farancisco’s blatantly anti-military stance while it’s most powerful citizen demands that the Air Force act as her personal air chaffeur service.  She actually requested that the Air Force reposition a pair of large jets from San Fran to Fairfield (Travis AFB, a distance of apprx 40 miles) for the great Lady’s convenience.  She had “business” in Fairfield.  So, to spare herself and her entourage (more later) what amounted to an hour’s drive (almost all of it via interstate), Queen P wanted the govt to waste several thousands of your hard earned tax dollars for her personal convenience.  And that of her daughter, son-in-law, grand daughter and who knows who else?  (Did the nanny come along?  God forbid anyone should have to burp baby and risk a soiled blouse.)  Gee, the average working man (and woman) in California faces at least an hour’s worth of commute twice a day for the privilege of supporting our royal congressional leaders.  You know, us working folks can no longer afford to live near our work because of environmentally stupid land use laws, greenspace restrictions, uber strict building codes, etc.. (see Thomas Sowell for a full vetting of this topic…)

Ms Malkin also discussed the hypocrisy of little miss global warming burning up the sky with week-end trips back home while demanding that we all drive smaller (and therefore more dangerous) cars, use low flush toilets (which really don’t work that well), switch to low energy bulbs (I know, supposedly the same candlepower, but I can’t see anything with them), and generally shrink our lifestyles in the name of MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING, or MMGW for short.  Funny how the royal Cassandra, Al Gore and her royal highness, Queen NP, can jet across the world and it’s O.K., but let you or me use some freon that actually cools our car and the black shirts are breaking down our door and hauling us off to jail.  It’s a wonderful new Obama world ain’t it?

Which brings me to the hypocrisy which Miss Malkin failed to expressly mention, and that’s the audacity of those self-appointed, self-righteous demagogues of dubious ethics and paper thin morality (see Charlie Rangel tell a reprter to mind his “GD business” when asked about his taxpayer funded fly Caddy at hillbillypolitics.com) pronouncing on the use of corporate jets by peolpe who actually produce the wealth that our Democratic rulers so wantonly watse.  We’ll leave aside for the nonce the question of whether bailed out companies should use business jets (I suspect it’s far more cost effective than letting a highly trained executive bide his time at the concourse hot dog stand.)  Queen Nancy, of “I’m Speaker of the House, I don’t comment on Rush Limbaugh” fame, and her ilk have no business dictating to execs of solvent companies about whether they should fly in corporate jets (not to mention what their salaries and comps should be.)  At least they have earned their jet.  At least they create wealth and jobs and have made our country the envy of the world.  What has Nancy done to compare with that while carting her grandaughter across the country twice a week?  What do she and her stoogies in Congress produce besides class envy rhetoric and calculated divisivness which cannot help but produce intractable govt dependence, soul sucking wealth distribution, i.e. robbery, and endless, childish carping about “the rich” until we are all poor?  All, that is, except for Queen Nancy, Prince Harry, Lord and Lady Clinton of Avarice, Court Jester Al “I invented the internet” Gore, the Duke of Ethics John Edwards and the Royal Conscience of the Democratic Party, the Right Rev. Mr. “Love Child” Jesse Jackson. 

Now hear this Mrs. Pelosi.  I respect and support the Office of the Speaker of the House.  But you are not my ruler.  I hired you and I pay your way.  You will take one trip a month from DC to SFO and like it.  If not, we’ll see you gone at the next election cyle. 

Thanks for your time and please don’t send the IRS after me to audit my books.  However, if you are interested in my taxes, I’d gladly accept some “free” govt help in deciphering the Byzantine tax code your royal pains, I mean pals, Charlie, Barney and Chris, have enacted…

Let’s see.  Back in days of BC (Before Clinton), being “rich” was defined as earning at least a million dollars a year.  During the actual epoch of the “Man from Hope,” it went down to $500K or so.  During the OC (Obama Campaign) it was variously $250K, $200K or thereabouts.  Now, so I’ve heard, it’s around $170K.  I suppose before long, if the current trend of European style socialism continues, it will be $50K or less.

Now, it’s a funny thing.  The gubmint has also been defining poverty up in the last several years.  When I was a boy (not that long ago), one needed to live in a tar paper shack, take the bus, work two jobs and  barely make ends meet before one was considered poor.  Before long, one could have a car, a single job and plenty of food to eat and still qualify for “poverty” status.  These days, I see people with a pack a day cigarette habit, a six pack a day beer habit, talking on cell phones, watching big screen cable TV, eating out in restaurants, staying in subsidized housing and working no job and still be considered living “below the poverty line.”

My question is this; when does the downward line graphing “the rich” intersect with the upward line representing “the poor” and what will it mean for all of us?  Wait.  I know.  It will be UTOPIA!  We will all, finally be EQUAL!  Equally poor (or rich, depending on how you look at it), equally mediocre, equally dumb (thank you NEA and AFT!), equally miserable and equally living in squalor.  Why will anyone want to work, produce, or take risks when someone else reaps the fruits of their labor?  And the army of loafers, who haven’t been gainfully employed in years, certainly won’t suddenly decide that now is the time for industry, initiative and thrift.  No, they will holla the louder because they ain’t gittin’ what they used to — sorry, there really isn’t enough for everyone to live on the dole in style.    

Also, it will probably involve nationalized health care, which really means rationed health care.  Those unfortunate folks over 55 years of age will not be deemed worthy for the state to spend money on such things as dialysis, organ transplants, lifesaving surgeries and etc. (see Theodore Darymple on the British healthcare system)  In other words, only the young and healthy will have access to healthcare when, surprise, it’s generally older folks who need it.  (Indeed, the vast majority of the “millions of uninsured” Brian Williams is always carping about are young people who have chosen to forego health insurance in order to swing wave runners, motorcycles, fancy cars, and so on.)  But in the brave new world, they will have it all — of course until that fateful day when they turn 55.  And, BTW, when the two lines meet, will any doctors be left?  That is, will anyone still be willing to endure 10 grueling years of med school so they can make $50K a year, most of which will be taxed to pay for the room and board of their own patients?  Somehow I doubt it, but let’s keep a good thought.  After all, we may get lucky on Ophra’s Big GiveAway and win a trip to, well, where ever private, that is, exceptional, medical care is still practised.  The Caymans, perhaps? 

Yes, it will be a brave new Obama World when the two lines meet.  Remember, though, all is not doom and gloom.  There will be a few who have cleverly been salting away nuts for the winter.  There will be a coterie of the power elite who have positioned themselves so that they are the beneficiaries of a big chunk of confiscatory tax receipts.  Remember the old Soviet Union?  Party members had nice houses and cars, plenty of food and other luxuries while the proletariat stood in bread lines.  Yes, Komrades Bill and Hillary will still be living high on the hog.  Komrade Nancy P. will still be jetting around to exotic locales on “fact finding” trips at the expense of the great unwashed.  And, speaking of the unwashed, Prince Harry Reid will no longer be forced to endure the malodorous stench of teeming throngs of mere citizens trying to catch a glimpse of what their hard work has wrought, being that the capital will long since have become an armed camp.  Oh wait, that’s already happened.  Dang, one can no longer write a satirical look at the future of American Obamaism before actual facts catch up to your blog.  Drats!

Oh well.  I’m satisfied.  I’m looking forward to being “rich” in the not too distant future without any further exertion on my part.  And to think, I wasted all that time living in dumps, working three jobs, going to night school, saving and scrimping, skipping luxuries, delaying gratification, etc, etc…

Of course,

OK all you wise guys at redstate, I’m doin’ the crowin’ now.  Remember when you called me a reactionary for opposing Specter back in the day?  Remember when we suggested putting our faith (and money) behind his Repub opponent in the primaries?  Oh no, the big wheels at redstate counseled, he’s really on our side.  We really need him in the crunch.

Well gentlemen, crunch time has come and gone.  Friday, the trillion dollar turkey passed the Senate with the help of guess who?  That’s right.  Your boy.  Mr. RINO himself – one A. Specter. 

Look, just because you can appear on Hannity & Combs doesn’t mean you have a better ear for politics than anyone ealse.  Yes, I respect you for starting this website and keeping the focus on conservative issues.  But geez louise, try listening to the homefolks once in a while.  Not being inside the beltway might just give us a unique perspective to sniff out phonies like A. Specter. 

Now listen.  He needs to go before he gets us in real trouble.  Oh, wait, the Democrats’ trillion dollar vote buying bill IS real trouble — too late.  Come down out of your ivory blogging towers and listen to some real people once in a while, whydoncha?