Reflections From a Murky Pond

Is a man and man, possessed of and by a similar nature and drives to his fellows, irrespective of his race, ethnicity, or creed? Are all peoples essential equal at a fundamental level in that they all have similar aspirations and have both base and sublime desires that resemble those of all other peoples?

Many Americans claim to believe that the answer to all these questions is yes, all men are equal.

Indeed, answer is contained within the single most quoted line from our Declaration of Independence and has been used many times as a rationale for changing our nation’s laws.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

The very wording of this declaration, combined with what we know of the Founding Fathers’ theologies and philosophies, sets forth the inherent equality of all of Man as a matter of Natural Law.

But, if this is case, one would be forced to accept the bad along with good. Whether it is merely people’s belief that all men are inherently equal or a fact of Natural Law that they are, in fact, equal in both propensity for nobility and for ignominy then one should expect roughly similar results and responses any stimulus that is applied to a group people, irrespective of their race, ethnicity, or creed.

That being the case, why do so many people in America believe that “domestic aid” programs will achieve any better results than the bulk of both private (NGO) and governmental foreign aid programs have achieved in the many decades of their existence?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Tea Parties and their supporters are much maligned by the Liberals. Those Liberals have taken great pains to paint all dissent against President Obama’s Leftist agenda as racist, but have taken especial pains to paint the Tea Parties and their supporters as a latter day Klu Klux Klan.

In truth, it’s an easy bit of rhetoric for the Liberal politicians, power brokers, and their MSM operatives such as Olbermann and Maddow, to use against the Tea Parties, since it resonates with both a large segment of the Black population and Leftist Whites as well.

It’s a simple fact that, when you’re a Liberal who is supporting America’s First Black President, who you’ve decided cannot be allowed to fail, a crowd of angry White Americans protesting his policies and agenda is both a danger and an opportunity.

After the Internet allowed the Tea Parties and alternate or citizens’ journalism outlets to largely refute the Liberals’ and their MSM operatives original tactic of only depicting and reporting upon the “lunatic fringe” of the protesters at the various rallies the Liberals fell back on a simple statement to continue to paint the Tea Parties as racists:

You never see Blacks at the Tea Party protests and rallies; the Tea Party is all White and, therefor, must be racist. No matter what the Tea Partiers are saying, it’s really all about race.

This is, admittedly, a somewhat alluring argument. The Tea Parties, after all, do seem to be a White phenomenon; one rarely, if ever, sees a Black among the crowds shown during coverage of the events. This means it’s certainly reasonable to question why there is such a seeming racial disparity between Blacks and Whites in the Tea Parties.

Is this racial disparity evidence of the racism of the Tea Party supporters or is this disparity caused by factors other than racism, prejudice, and animosity?

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s an ill wind blowing, both from the from the clean-energy program from last year’s Stimulus and from some of Obama’s erstwhile Democrats in the Senate. It’s carrying the wreak of failure and internal dissent straight into the face of President Obama and his Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner.

It seems that the renewable energy grants included in the Stimulus are stimulating other countries’ economies instead America’s and various Democrats in the Senate are rightfully angered by this.

From Politico:

Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana announced Wednesday a new initiative to require the “Buy America” provision of the stimulus to all programs, not just the government ones. A study done by the Investigative Reporting Workshop found that 79 percent of the $2 billion in clean-energy grants allocated since Sept. 1, 2009, has gone to foreign wind companies.

“We are demanding the Obama administration suspend this program immediately … [and] indefinitely,” Schumer said. “We are sending a letter to Secretary [Timothy] Geithner asking him to halt all payouts for this program until we in Congress can go back and fix this law.”

The senators highlighted a wind farm project in west Texas, which received stimulus aid and is projected to create 3,000 jobs in China and a tenth as many in the United States.

“Some of us complained about this to the administration back in November when this project was first announced, so it’s not that they don’t know about it, but the Energy Department in their reply said they were powerless to stop it because projects like this are automatically eligible for the grants. That answer is not good enough,” Schumer said. “The goal of the stimulus is to strengthen the American economy, and that means creating jobs here in the U.S. not in China.”

That’s right; 79% of the $2 billion in clean-energy grants allocated through the Stimulus since Sept. 1, 2009, have gone to foreign wind companies. That’s $1.58 billion of the American taxpayers’ money going into the coffers of foreign companies.

It’s shockingly refreshing and somewhat heartening to see at least some of the Democrats in Congress not bowing and scraping to Obama and actually looking out for Americans.

At least it proves that President Obama’s claims that the Stimulus and renewable energy would each create jobs was true, at least in a Rovian sense; just the bulk of them won’t be American jobs.