Reflections From a Murky Pond

Liberals and their Lamestream Media have denounced the 113th Congress as The Do-Nothing Congress and they’ve erroneously declared it The Least Productive Congress in History. Predictably, they declaim that this is wrong and evil and, equally predictably, they blame the GOP and only the GOP for this situation which they so deplore.

The Do-Nothing Congress

To America’s domestic enemies the simply fact that the 113th Congress has passed just 58 laws to be sent to Obama’s desk so that his little robot can sign them into law so far is a major failing. This is simply because Liberals and Progressives measure the worth of Congress by the sheer quantity of public laws enacted. To them that is governance.

Leftists are ideologically unable to comprehend, much less understand, the simple truth that sometimes less is more and this is certainly true of the enactment of additional laws.

The Elephant’s Child sums it up well:

The Do-Nothing Congress has been good for America, and if they pass few new laws, we can breathe slightly more easily.  Congress passed just 70 laws, which may be too many. But Obama and Congressional Democrats planned an array of Big Government initiatives — gun control, immigration reform, a higher minimum wage, more job creation, infrastructure (again!), climate change, and education, to name only a few. Congress ended the year with none of those initiatives signed into law. And we are far better for it. No major tax hike, and the probability of a major tax hike in the next year has fallen.

NOTE: We have a minor discrepancy. The Elephant’s Child says 70 laws and my figures show 58. It’s not really here nor there but worth noting.

But then, this is the difference between Americans and the statists of the Left. Americans know that governing is not measured, at least positively measured, by the number of laws that are enacted.

Tags: America | Congress | Federalism | Freedom | GOP | Government | Law | Leftists | Liberals | Liberty | Progressives | Statism | Statists

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 28th, 2013 at 8:11 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Have you ever considered what sort of nursery rhymes and children’s book the Liberals and Progressives would create and purchase for those of their get that they actually allowed to be born? More importantly, have you ever considered what sort of nursery rhymes and children’s book the Liberals and Progressives would want to be mandatory in state-sponsored daycare centers and primary schools?

The Little Train That Couldn’t

Yes, if Americans allow the Leftists within America a mere four years during their children’s most formative time, they’ll plant a seed in them that will never be uprooted…or so they hope.

I would expect that yellow train engines are a minority and that there’s institutional racism preventing them from suceeding on their own since that’s a core Leftist curriculum.

Yep. The Little Train That Couldn’t – fully approved for Pre-K age children by the Obama Department of Education and The Nudge Panel.

Tags: America | Books & Reading | Children | Education | Humor | Indoctrination | Liberals | Parenting | Politics | Progressives | Statism | Statists

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 11th, 2013 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Books & Reading, Humor, Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

This is no time for ceremony. The question before the People is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of the Heavens, which I revere above all earthly lords, kings, and governments.

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the government for the last four years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves. Is it that insidious smile with which our petitions have been lately received?

Trust it not; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petitions comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land.

Are drones and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love?

Let us not deceive ourselves. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings and tyrants resort. I ask, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen or ladies assign any other possible motive for it? Has America any enemy, within our own borders, to call for all this accumulation of armed agencies? No, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent out to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the government have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? We have been trying that for the last ten years or more.

Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, deceive ourselves.

We have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the Presidency, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the Congress. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the Presidency!

In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.

If we wish to remain free – if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending – if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained – we must fight! I repeat it, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God(s) of hosts is all that is left us! They tell us that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a government guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but irresolution and inaction?

Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God(s) of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, we shall not fight our battles alone. There are just Gods who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles beside us. The battle is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

Besides, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the streets of every city in our land!

The war is inevitable – and let it come! I repeat it, sirs and mesdames, let it come.

It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Ladies and gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace – but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brothers and sisters are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that people wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God(s)! I know not what course others may take but as for me; I will keep my liberty or I will fall in death.

~*~

And so, my fellow Americans, I openly, frankly, and honestly brand myself an “extremist” and likely “terrorist” in a mere 1143 words. For so will the Liberals and Progressives, the agents of Statism and subjugation label me for repeating and updating the words of Patrick Henry, which he spoke in St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia on March 20, 1775.

And yet, they are not utterly foolish to do so. The brave and inspiring words of Patrick Henry are as applicable now as they were in the final prelude to the Revolution because the Liberals and Progressives, and the politicians they’ve managed to install now fulfill exactly the same role as George III, his court, and the Royalists who supported them.

History repeat itself. The names, flags, slogans, and excuses may change, but the underlying struggle of Liberty against Tyranny remains the same. So too does the means to win that struggle remain the same.

Tags: America | American Revolution | Extremism | Founding Fathers | Freedom | Government | History | Insurrection | Liberals | Liberty | Patrick Henry | Progressives | Revolution | Statism | Statists | Tyranny

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2013 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Ayn Rand, one of the few staunch literary defenders of individual liberty and robust American capitalism and excellence, had much to say about the goals of the Leftists, these Liberals and Progressives:

The goal of the “liberals”—as it emerges from the record of the past decades—was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot—by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli.

— Ayn Rand
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

I happen to disagree with her. Insofar as I can see, statism is the chosen methodology of the Liberals and Progressives, not the goal. A giant, all-encompassing, intrusive government is merely, to them, a necessary means to an end.

There goal is to have a “state” without national identity, pride, or identifiable culture where all of the people’s sundry needs and most desires are either fulfilled or guaranteed by the government. They wish to bring about an egalitarian Utopia where merit and circumstance have no bearing upon one’s material success.

Statism, despite Rand’s assertion, is just the only means by which the Leftists believe they can bring about this unnatural state of being. They simple need a despotic central force to enact and maintain their fantasy of a neo-Socialist, fully managed society.

Tags: America | Ayn Rand | Books & Reading | Capitalism | Leftists | Liberals | Politics | Progressives | Socialism | Statism | Statists

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2012 at 11:43 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

In any society that hopes to maintain its liberty and avoid tyranny it is necessary for its people to instill fear in its political leadership. In best case scenarios this needs only be the fear of the consequences of misbehavior. In other all too common situations it is necessary to fill the politicians with the fear of reprisals by the people.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

– Attributed to Thomas Jefferson

America is at a point where it is dealing with a middle case scenario where politicians need to be instilled with a combination of preventative and punitive fears.

Fortunately, Americans have exercised some of the means at their disposal to instill the needed fear in the political elite. They banded together as the TEA Parties and elected representatives to Congress who were of strong purpose and character.

In the degenerate system that America’s federal government has devolved into, honest and patriotic men an women who have chosen to shoulder the burden of providing correction to that system and who are willing to disregard the personal cost to themselves for doing so are an acute source of fear for all the professional politicians who are heavily invested, often literally, in maintaining the current broken status quo.

Nothing scares professional politicians more than actual statesmen, and nothing scares the Liberals and Progressives more than American statesmen, even though they whine and rant when their own sort don’t behave similarly.

Tags: America | Debt | Deficit | Democrats | Fear | Federalism | Freedom | Instilling Fear | Leftists | Liberals | Liberty | Media Bias | Patriots | Politics | Pork | Pork Barrel | Progressives | Republicans | Spending | Statism | Statists | Subsidiarity | Tea Parties

This entry was posted on Friday, August 12th, 2011 at 11:09 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.