"It's a strategy that we've seen this administration pursue over the last six years, that basically says government has no role to play in making sure that America is prosperous for all people and not just some," Obama said to applause during an appearance before the Communications Workers of America.
Hey Barack, the government can't make all people prosperous, any more than it can make all people rock stars. The only thing that government can do is to try to foster the conditions under which people are free to pursue their own prosperity. The only thing that policies like those that you propose will accomplish will be to make people dependent on the government.
You want to tax individuals and businesses excessively. You want to increase government regulation of our lives, with the inevitable result of reducing our civil liberties. You want people of some races and gender to have preferences over others.
All of your fawning sycophants in the lefty media are talking about how you are so new and unique. There's nothing new about anything you are proposing. Your ideas are nothing but old, rehashed socialism. It has been tried in various forms all over the world, and the results have been dismal.
the children were building their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys — assumptions that mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive. As we watched the children build, we became increasingly concerned.
That is definitely something to worry about. We can't have those young, impressionable kids developing notions of free enterprise and personal responsibility, can we?
Tragedy struck and the Legotown that these capitalist oppressors were building was destroyed! The teachers of this progressive day care center seized the opportunity:
We saw the decimation of Lego-town as an opportunity to launch a critical evaluation of Legotown and the inequities of private ownership and hierarchical authority on which it was founded. Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation.
The teachers decided to "liberate" the Legos by removing them from the classroom:
We recognized that children are political beings, actively shaping their social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity — whether we interceded or not. We agreed that we want to take part in shaping the children's understandings from a perspective of social justice. So we decided to take the Legos out of the classroom.
Legos were finally brought back, but only to be played with under certain "progressive" rules:
All structures are public structures. Everyone can use all the Lego structures. But only the builder or people who have her or his permission are allowed to change a structure.
Lego people can be saved only by a "team" of kids, not by individuals.
All structures will be standard sizes.
So what happens to the kids who do not "collaborate" with the "team"? Are they sent to a timeout in the daycare version of Vorkuta?
When I think of some of the sick, twisted minds who are taking care of our kids, I feel very ill.
Hat tip to John Miller at NRO.
The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.
The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves.
Isn't that rich? Using the phrase "War on Terror" has caused more damage than the three thousand people who were murdered in cold blood on 9/11. More than the 50 people who were murdered on 7/7 in the subway bombings in England. More than the 200 people who were murdered in the Bali nightclub bombing. Is it any wonder with such "intelligent" and "nuanced" advisors like Brzezinski, Jimmy was overhwelmingly voted out of office in 1980?
Some more words of wisdom from this raving genius:
But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue.
Hey Einstein, the cause of the fear was not the phrase "War on Terror". The cause of the fear was those homicidal maniacs flying planeloads full of people into buildings on September 11, 2001. I can just imagine what was going on in your sick little twisted mind on that day. You were probably thinking that the USA deserved the terrorist attacks, weren't you?
That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly debatable.
Tell me something Zbig, how many terrorist attacks have there been in the USA since 9/11? We have become more secure from the efforts of the war on terror, not less. As for paranoia, I think you have cornered the market on that form of mental illness, with your paranoia about the war on terror.
Q: Why do you think some people are so eager to cast you as a beneficiary of affirmative action?A: That was the creation of the politicians, the people with a lot of mouth and nothing to say and your industry. They had a story and everything had to fit into their story. It discounts other people's achievements. Ask Ted how many all-nighters he pulled. It discounts those. It's so discouraging to see the fraudulent renditions of very complicated and different lives of people who were struggling in a new world for them. Everything becomes affirmative action. There wasn't some grand plan. I just showed up.
Q: How is the world different for college kids today?
A: You don't go to college to be a decoration. You're not there to please other people. You're there to do better in your own life. The only answer I'm interested in is to the question: Are these kids better off for having gone to a college? If they are, how? Ask that question about the first black kids who went to Holy Cross and the answer is a resounding 'Yes.' Yes, they are better off. Ask yourself that today. What's the attrition rate? It used to be up around 40% or something like that. There was no attrition in my class.
Q: Is it solely because of a mismatch of students and the schools that admit them?
A: I don't know. I don't think people even ask the question any more. I tried for years to get focus on why you actually went to school as opposed to diversity and multiculturalism. I didn't go to school for any of that stuff. I went to school to learn and get on with my life. I wasn't there to prove or disprove anybody else's point. I've thought a lot about these things, and I've spent the bulk of my life, beating my head against a wall, trying to get people to see that they can have their grand theories but, in the end, you can't impose them on other people's kids. How many kids do you have? They're different, aren't they? If your kids are different—and they're all yours—what about just some kids who happen to be different shades of black, different degrees of Negro? They're all from different family settings—some two parents, some no parents, some raised by grandparents. Come on. How can you just all of a sudden treat them as all the same?
Hat tip to John Lott.
That amendment states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The wording clearly applies to only the common defense, the high court ruled nearly 70 years ago, with a gun right grounded only in relation to state militias.
And of course if these jarheads at the CSM would bother reading the new decision, they would understand just how eggregiously the supreme court was in error. There is no question as to the founding fathers' intent with regards to the second amendment. It was put there to guarantee individual rights to keep and bear arms.
And now we have got the gun-haters really worried:
Now there's a possibility that a more conservative Supreme Court might endorse this lower-court decision. If so, the justices will need to acknowledge that public safety requires regulation of firearms.
The supreme court has disappointed me so many times (e.g. Kelo case) that I am not going to speculate on what they will do. But I certainly hope that they endorse the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Public safety does not require regulation of firearms. It needs more firearms in the right hands. Law-abiding people should have the right and the means to defend themselves against criminals and against a tyrannical government.
Anyone who wants gun control may move to a country that has gun control. Such people do not deserve to live in a free society.
During World War II, Gandhi penned an open letter to the British people, urging them to surrender to the Nazis. Later, when the extent of the holocaust was known, he criticized Jews who had tried to escape or fight for their lives as they did in Warsaw and Treblinka. “The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife,” he said. “They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.” “Collective suicide,” he told his biographer, “would have been heroism.”
In the five years before Washington’s ban in 1976, the murder rate fell from 37 to 27 per 100,000. In the five years after it went into effect, the murder rate rose back up to 35. During this same time, robberies fell from 1,514 to 1,003 per 100,000 and then rose by over 63 percent, up to 1,635. The five-year trends are not some aberration. In fact, while murder rates have varied over time, during the 30 years since the ban, the murder rate has only once fallen below what it was in 1976.
I am amazed by the total lack of any reason or logic on the part of the gun control advocates. What in the world makes them think that someone who is willing to commit murder or armed robbery is going to care about some law banning guns? All that they will accomplish by banning guns will be to take them away from law-abiding people. And this will hurt the poor people who live in rougher neighborhoods much more than anyone else.
The mind boggles.
By last year, Chirac's stock had fallen so far that his big plan to 'restore' Gallic pride was — no joke — to create a government-funded alternative to Google. Ah, the glory of France.
As a stockholder of Google, I was quaking in my boots at the thought of competing with "Froggle", or whatever they were gonna call it. It just wouldn't be fair, Jacques. Let us poor Americans have at least some tiny part of the internet. Don't hog it all for yourself.
Not content to rest on his laurels from having invented the internet, Owl Gore wants to save us from global warming. The New York Times, of all things, has a good article on how the Dimpled Chad Man has distorted the views of scientists regarding the role of CO2 emissions in global warming.
Whenever I think of how close this jackass came to becoming president, I feel a chill run down my spine. It makes me utter a silent "thank you" to President Bush.
The 2 to 1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down sections of a 1976 law that bans city residents from having handguns in their homes. The court also overturned the law's requirement that shotguns and rifles be stored disassembled or with trigger locks. The court grounded its unprecedented ruling in the finding that the Second Amendment right to bear arms extends beyond militias to individuals. The activities the Second Amendment protects, the judges wrote, "are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or continued intermittent enrollment in the militia."
It's about time that the courts started recognizing what the Founding Fathers' true intent was in crafting the second amendment. They were quite clear that it was an individual right, in spite of the way that some idiots have tried to interpret the wording of the amendment. Of course, the socialists at the Post don't see it that way:
If allowed to stand, this radical ruling will inevitably mean more people killed and wounded as keeping guns out of the city becomes harder. Moreover, if the legal principles used in the decision are applied nationally, every gun control law on the books would be imperiled.
It is ridiculous to think that this ruling will mean more people killed or wounded. Someone who is going to use a gun in a crime could care less what the gun control laws say. They only have the effect of disarming law-abiding people. But I do hope that they are correct that every gun control law is now imperiled.
Read the court decision here. One important exercept:
To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as either resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad).
It just goes to show you how pathetic is the far Left in this country. Bereft of any significant political victories, our lefty pals must imagine that the conviction of “Scooter” Libby amounts to an indictment of the Bush doctrine, the Republican Party, Dick Cheney, apple pie, the Fine Young Cannibals, &c.
Allegedly he [Sergo Ordzhonikidze, one of Stalin's closest supporters] had told Stalin it was time to stop the arrests. Stalin responded by sending him three NKVD men, a doctor and a revolver, offering him the choice of suicide or execution. Ordzhonikidze said goodbye to his wife and duly shot himself, whereupon the doctor diagnosed failure of the heart.
Alex de Jonge, "Stalin and the Shaping of the Soviet Union", p. 331.
